


you cannot acknowledge (all the things you learned in...)

by catfishCaper



Series: you know i'm gonna be so proud [1]
Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Asexual Character, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, Polyamory, Trans Female Character, but present. i'm not just tagging every ship i mention they will be described, charle is just like a regular cat in this but she still has her great personality don't worry, everything except the chendy is pretty minor unfortunately, former gajevy but not anymore suckers, jellal and myst are twins, other characters and ships to be added as they appear, rogue and wendy are twins in this one, suckers being in this situation gajeel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 16:46:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6203107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catfishCaper/pseuds/catfishCaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wendy knew that, logically, college was supposed to be about learning to be a doctor (or at least, learning biology well enough to get a good score on the MCATs so she could go to medical school, where she would ACTUALLY learn how to be a doctor) and getting good grades and all that. But how was she supposed to concentrate on all that when the cute girl who helped her move in was in all her classes?</p><p>Maybe college would also have to be about learning who Wendy Marvell really <i>was.</i> At least she'd have her old best friend and a bunch of new friends to help her out with it.</p><p>fairy tail college au</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Move In Day

**Author's Note:**

> @ myself: what are you doing writing a college au that has no end in sight when you leave the country in less than 2 weeks
> 
> LET'S DO THIS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title comes from "College" by Rogue Wave

August 15th.

Freshman move in day at the Fiore University dorms.

Wendy braced herself. She could do this.

In her left hand was a cat carrier that held her best friend, Charle. In her right hand was the handle for her blue suitcase. On her back was her matching blue backpack, and under her right arm was a pillow in a blue pillowcase. She didn’t want to have to make too many trips. They had parked really far from the dorm.

Her mother had gone off to find a cart, or someone to help them carry their things, while Wendy waited by the car. But it had been five whole minutes and her mother had not been seen, and it was _sweltering_ out. So Wendy took matters into her own hands, and made her way to the dorm so she could line up to get a spot on one of the two elevators in the building. 

Look, even _she_ didn’t want to carry all this crap up ten flights of stairs.

About fifteen minutes later, after texting her mother her plan, she finally made it to her floor and had found her room. Her roommate had already arrived, but was not there, and seemed to have claimed the lofted bed by the bedroom door, rather than the one by the window, which was fine by Wendy, who wanted to enjoy the view first thing when she woke up in the morning.

As she was arranging the things she had under her bed and reassuring Charle that she would be out of the awful carrier soon, a knock came on her open door.

“Yes?”

A girl a few years older than Wendy entered the room. “You must be...either Wendy or Laki. I’m your RA, Lucy!” She smiled.

“It’s Wendy. Laki must be my roommate, I haven’t seen her yet…”

Lucy waved her hand, “Oh, she’ll be around. Probably just getting more of her stuff. Anyway, I just wanted to introduce myself! I’m in charge of your floor for the rest of the year so I’m sure we’ll get to know each other pretty well.”

“Uh...yeah…”

“Great! Well, I’ll see you and your roommate later at our very first floor meeting in the common area! 8pm, don’t be late!” Lucy winked at her and flounced out of the room.

Wendy’s mother chose that very moment to text her back. _found lovely grl willing to help carry the rest of ur stuff. she has a cart! will b @ ur room soon_ was what she said, followed by the car emoji, the building emoji, the nail polish emoji, and a cat with heart eyes emoji.

 _see you soon!_ Wendy texted back, with no emojis.

She started to unpack a little, but not too much, because what if her roommate or the “lovely girl” her mom found came in while she was messing with her underwear? She stuck to sweaters. She put away all of her sweaters, and she put them away like a pro.

Her mom and her mom’s helper showed up about ten minutes later, after Wendy had successfully rearranged her socks a few times, and put some of the books that were in her backpack on her desk. She jumped when she heard them come in, and then found herself frozen in place when she saw the girl her mom had found.

She had not been exaggerating when she said the girl was lovely. She was so pretty. Bright pink hair tied back in twin tails with long, ostentatious ribbons, and eyes that were Wendy’s very favorite shade of blue. She was wearing a red shirt that read “MOVE-IN CREW” in big white letters with white mid-thigh length shorts. She had one red shoe and one white. She grinned at Wendy when she saw her.

“You must be Wendy! I’ve heard a lot about you.” Then she winked at Wendy, and Wendy felt her soul leave her body.

This was it. The moment of her death. She wanted all of her stuff except her diary to go to Charle, and Charle to go to her mom, and her diary to go to Rogue, because he was the only person she could think of who would burn it instead of reading it. A cute girl had winked at her, and. And. And nothing! A cute girl had winked at her. That would be the cause of death on the coroner’s report.

She realized several moments had gone past with her just gaping at the pretty girl, and both the girl and her mother were getting a little uncomfortable. Charle hissed. Wendy snapped out of it. “Oh! Uh, yes! Wendy Marvell, that’s me! Ahaha.”

“I’m Chelia, it’s very nice to meet you. Um, where do you want me to put this…?” Chelia held up a suitcase that she had just hauled off the cart she had come with.

“Oh! Uh! Just set it on the ground, don’t worry about it! I, I got it!” Wendy said, rushing forward the few feet between them to help unload the cart.

It only took about thirty seconds to empty the cart, and Chelia stepped back into the hall. “Well, I better go help out some more people. Really nice to meet you, Wendy! I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon.” And then she was gone.

Grandeeney, Wendy’s mother, watched Wendy watch Chelia leave. “Wow.”

“Sh-Shut up, Mom!”

They unpacked, and though it took about half an hour, it felt like the time passed by much faster. Wendy’s roommate still had not showed up when they were finished, and Wendy and her mother awkwardly stood in the middle of the floor, facing each other.

“Well, looks like I’ve done all I can here,” Grandeeney said.

“You, are you sure?”

“You’re here, you’re unpacked, you have all your supplies...nothing much left for me to do except hug you goodbye, kiddo.” Grandeeney smiled bitterly at her daughter. Wendy felt tears welling up in her eyes. She threw her arms around her mother.

“I don’t want you to go yet,” she said, voice cracking from the tears.

Grandeeney patted her daughter’s head. “Hey, it’s okay. You’ve got Charle, and you can call me whenever you need anything. Okay?” She squeezed her daughter and then pulled out of the embrace. “It’s time for me to go now, Wendy. Have...Have a good time.” She turned around before Wendy could see the tears building in her eyes and took her leave.

Wendy checked her phone. The background was a picture of Charle in her Halloween costume from last year. She had decided not to change it until she found something cuter than her cat dressed as a fairy princess, and she still had not. She had no new texts, emails, or miscellaneous notifications. The time was 3:30. She had four and a half hours until there was anything she needed to do.

She sat down in her chair. Maybe just a little reading to get ahead before the semester started?

Her roommate finally showed about an hour into her study session, lugging about six bags of various shapes and sizes. She dropped them all on the ground when she saw Wendy. “Hello! I am Laki,” she said.

“Wendy,” Wendy replied.

“What are you doing?” Laki asked, shoving various bags in various places on her side of the room.

Wendy blushed. “Oh, uh, I had nothing better to do, so I started to look at the material for some of my classes.”

Laki blinked slowly. “Wow,” she said. “That’s very...impressive.”

Wendy got even redder. “Well, you know, always a good idea to get ahead so you don’t get behind, right?”

“...Yeah.” Laki started sorting through one of her bags. “I gue--wait is that a cat?” 

She had finally noticed Charle, curled up on Wendy’s bed. Granted, it was a lofted bed, and Charle was a small cat, but still. “Yeah! That’s Charle, my be--my cat. You’re not allergic to cats, are you? Wait, if you were, they wouldn’t have assigned us to be roommates, because I specifically put on the form that I would be bringing her…”

“Oh it’s no problem! I like cats. I was just wondering.” She pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “She is very cute.”

“Uh, thanks.”

Silence.

Laki unpacked another bag, and Wendy steadfastly ignored what appeared to be multiple lengths of rope in her roommate’s hand. What was she reading? Chemistry. So hydrogen bonds…

“Do you want to get dinner later?” Laki blurted out.

“Oh! Uh, sure? There’s a barbecue just outside then, right?”

Laki nodded. “I only feed vegetables to my stomach, but I’m sure there will be options for me.”

Wendy took that sentence in. “Right.”

Laki seemed to accept this answer, and went back to unpacking. Something which looked like a miniature iron maiden found its home on her desk in the same spot Wendy had a cup of pencils. All right, then.

Hydrogen bonds.

She got to know Laki a little better over dinner (quite a bit of what she learned were the meanings behind her roommate’s various euphemisms) which made the hours leading up to the floor meeting a little less stifled. That did not mean the hours did not seem to stretch on forever, without anything to do but text Rogue to ask how his move in had gone, and if he wanted to meet her during dinner. He didn’t reply to either message, and she didn’t see him during dinner. 

But 8 pm finally did arrive, and Wendy and Laki made their way to the common area, where Lucy and about fifty other girls were waiting. At around 8:05, Lucy began the meeting.

“Welcome, everyone! If we haven’t met yet, I’m your RA, which stands for resident advisor, Lucy Heartfilia! I’ll be semi in charge of you during your stay here on this floor. Tonight I just have a few rules to go over and then I can send you on your ways…”

There were some art prints on the walls, and then all had the name of the University’s art museum on them. There was a couch and two chairs, all taken up by girls who she supposed she would meet later, and a coffee table that someone else was sitting on. As Lucy explained that no male visitors were allowed after 10 pm, Wendy wondered if that extended to female visitors if the intent to...canoodle was still there. Not that she had any intent to canoodle. The most she had the intent to ever do was maybe smooch a little. Oh wow. She could feel herself going red at just the thought of it.

“...and that’s pretty much it! If you guys have any questions, my door’s open! Well, it will be closed, but my office hours are written on a piece of paper taped to it, so during those hours I am free game! And don’t forget to drop by if you want to meet my dog Plue! See you all later!”

Wendy and Laki, with nothing better to do and no questions, went back to their room. Laki, though it was only 8:30, changed into her pajamas and made herself comfortable on the bed. Wendy, after a quick shower, found herself doing the same.

It had been a long day. At only 9, she was dog tired. She turned out the light when Laki didn’t object, gently transferred Charle from her pillow to the edge of the bed, and went to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey kiddos! here's an incredibly self-indulgent fairy tail college au. it's gonna be gay. i'm not gonna lie. pretty much no one is a heterosexual and the big fandom ships will be nowhere except in the past or completely ignored!


	2. First Day Of Class

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More people are introduced, including a beautiful security officer, Wendy's suitemates, Lucy's dog, and (sort of) Wendy's brother. Also, first day of school!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> who's ready for me to shove my "rogue and wendy are twins" headcanon right into their fucking faces???? you better be!!

There were still four days after the move in day before classes started, but lucky for Wendy they were packed with activities, so at least she had something to do. She went around to the tables set up around the quad advertising for clubs and put her name on the email lists for the LGBT+ group, the pre-med club, a club that regularly volunteered at local animal shelter Cait Shelter, and a jiu jitsu club, because she did need to keep up her fitness.

She texted Rogue to see if he wanted to come around with her. She actually texted him before every meal over the next four days to see if he want to hang out, but he never responded to any of them. She had an Android phone so she couldn't tell if he was reading them or not, but she was sure he was as he didn't have much to do since he had no friends at the school, and was on his phone most of the time doing whatever it was 18 year old boys did with smartphones.

The Friday night before classes started the school had scheduled a special event with the local Target store where buses would come to pick up freshman who needed to buy things, and the store would be closed for everyone except for them. Wendy and her roommate Laki, as well as their suitemates who they shared a bathroom with, Lisanna and Miki, decided to go together to get things for their bathroom, because although Lisanna and Miki had been there the year before, they didn’t have everything the bathroom needed between the two of them.

On Sunday afternoon Wendy decided to walk around campus to see where all of her classes were just so that she would know before they started and she wouldn't get lost. She texted Rogue to ask if he wanted to come along even though he took engineering classes as opposed to her pre-med classes, and even though she knew it was futile and he wouldn’t text her back. Listen. She just wanted to spend a little time with her estranged twin, okay? There was nothing wrong with that.

Sunday night was when yet another floor meeting was scheduled. Lucy had sent them an email Friday afternoon saying they had to meet with the head of housing for their building, as well as some people from campus security to get certain requirements before the school year started out of the way. So Sunday at 8 p.m. (the only time that didn’t conflict with any sorority chapter meetings, they had discovered) found Wendy, Laki, Miki, and Lisanna all sitting on the floor in the common area again. It was nice to have more than one person to talk to, especially since Laki could be so weird to talk to sometimes. 

The head of housing for their dorm certainly didn't look like the kind of guy who would be in charge of hundreds of college students, given that the fact that he apparently wore tribal clothing all the time instead of his uniform, and that he only left his office for “things only he could do” like meetings he’d be fired over if he didn’t attend. His name was Nab, and Wendy was honestly a little confused about how he got his job. He wandered off as soon as he said his piece, leaving just the security representative and Lucy.

The security representative was someone who was apparently a pre-law student who would graduate at the end of the year but wanted to do whatever she could to protect her school in the meantime. She was a tall redhead named Erza, and even though she was really really beautiful, BOY was she scary, Wendy thought. She glared at all of them indiscriminately, except for Lucy, who she smiled softly at. Wendy wondered if there was something there, perhaps, because Lisanna had mentioned knowing her and being her friend from childhood, yet she did not offer the same small gentle smile to her.

“Now listen carefully to what Erza has to say, because she is the last person in the world you want to get in trouble with,” Lucy informed them.

“I know Lucy told you guys the basic rules earlier this week, and I’m just here to tell you again, so it sinks in.” Wendy, who had spaced off while Lucy was telling them the rules a few days ago, was both glad to hear them again and terrified about what Erza would do to her if she stopped paying attention.

“Rule number one: no drugs or alcohol in this building, at any times.If it’s not a prescription your doctor gave you, keep it out, or there will be _consequences_ .” 

“You’ll have to speak to Nab here--wait where did he go? oh come on Nab,” she sighed, “and possibly get suspended!” Lucy said. “However, if someone is consuming alcohol and they get sick and you call an ambulance or something to take care of them, your punishment will be a lot less. We don’t want another…” Erza shot her a look. “Anyway! Rule number two?”

“Rule number two: after 10 pm, it’s quiet hours. That means no one can hear you outside your room.”

“We RAs walk up and down the halls periodically to check that people are following this rule. If not, you could get cited.”

“Rule number three: during quiet hours, there are no boys allowed in your rooms. If we knock on your door and we see a boy, everyone in the room will get cited.”

“ _Please don’t make me talk to the RA guys to tell them one of my girls was breaking the rules with one of their boys_ ,” Lucy pleaded very seriously. “Like, okay, one of the guys across the hall, one of Gray’s boys? Fine. Whatever. I can talk to Gray, we’re friends. But anyone else? You’re dead to me, girls.”

Wendy gulped. She wondered if that included family. Not that Rogue was ever going to talk to her, though.

“Also, you’ll have alcohol and sexual assault training on Friday at 7. This is MANDATORY. I will be here, Lucy will be here, and all of you better be here. Got it?” All of the girls nodded. “Okay, last item on the agenda: pets. I trust all of you with pets have paid your deposits to keep them here? Good. Lucy here is going to give us a little demonstration of how to treat pets in the dorms.”

“Thank you, Erza!” Lucy stepped forward, holding something in her arms that had definitely not been there a second ago. “This is my dog, Plue! I told you all about him a few days ago.”

That was not a dog. Wendy didn’t know what it was, but it was definitely not a dog. It had an orange unicorn horn for a nose! And no ears!

“Plue here is very shy, but he doesn’t bite, don’t worry. However, you cannot assume the same of any dog or cat or miscellaneous animal you meet in this building! Pets cannot be let out of their owner’s rooms without supervision. So if you see an animal roaming around with no people, don’t approach it, and don’t try to pet it! Just leave it alone, or call me if you’re really worried so I can get someone to take care of it. I’ll be coming around to your rooms later to meet all of your pets so I know them on sight, don’t forget.”

Erza nodded. “Is there anything else I’m forgetting?” she asked Lucy.

“Um...oh! If something breaks in your room, don’t come to me. There’s a maintenance hotline posted on the wall by the drinking fountain, or you can fill out an online form if you aren’t comfortable with talking on the phone. And, lastly, guys, let’s all just try to get along, okay? I know a lot of you are freshmen and it can be stressful moving into a new environment like this, but don’t take it out on your roommate or your suitemates. If it’s your turn to buy the toilet paper, be a decent person and buy a pack of toilet paper from Target. Don’t leave those passive aggressive post-it notes. If I have to listen to complaints that someone won’t stop listening to music without headphones or something like that, I’ll flip my shit. Okay? You’re adults. You can solve conflicts by yourselves.”

“Well said, Lucy!” Erza grinned at Lucy, who smiled back. Was she blushing? Holy crap, thought Wendy. Did her incredibly cute RA have a thing for the beautiful security officer? Not that it was any of her business, but she _really wanted to know._

Lisanna knew both of them from living here the year before, and from being Erza’s friend since they were kids. Maybe she’d know.

“All right, guys, meeting over! Don’t forget to turn in your room checklists by Wednesday, and have a great first day tomorrow!”

Wendy’s first day went...okay.

She only had three classes Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and another two on Tuesday-Thursday (she figured 15 hours was more than enough for her first semester), so it was better than high school. And her professors just went over the syllabi, so it wasn’t like she had to pay a lot of attention. Waking up at seven to get to her 8:30 lab was going to be a pain, but she could handle it.

What she couldn’t handle was _her._

The girl who had helped her mom, Chelia, who she had thought was a sophomore at least!!! was in all of her classes! All of them! Even her women and gender studies elective, it was a little ridiculous. How had they managed to sync schedules. _How._

She only noticed because apparently Chelia was one of those people who sat in the first row every class, which Wendy would have done if she was a little more confident, but being homeschooled meant she wasn’t used to huge class sizes and she got nervous because what if everyone stared at her? But Chelia was very noticeable, with her bright pink hair and radiant smile and the way Can You Feel The Love Tonight (the Elton John version) started automatically playing in her head whenever she looked at her.

God, what was _wrong_ with her? She’d never liked a girl this much before. Though, to be fair, she didn’t get out that much in high school. Or, before high school. More downsides of being homeschooled.

She wondered if Rogue had it this hard when he liked someone. Then again, he actually went to public school, so maybe he was used to seeing really attractive people all the time, probably. Unless everyone who went to his school was ugly. Sabertooth High didn’t sound like the kind of place that had a lot of really hot students.

She went back to her room after her last class, checked to make sure Laki wasn’t napping, got up into her bed, and groaned “I’m so _gaaaaay_ ,” into her pillow. Charle made herself at home in the small of Wendy’s back so she couldn’t get up. Wendy pulled out her phone, as there was literally nothing else she could physically do without pissing off her cat, and saw she had a text from her mom.

 _how was school?_ School emoji, sunglasses emoji, jazz hands emoji, pencil emoji.

 _fine. how’s the clinic?_

Wendy’s mother ran an emergency clinic out of their home. Part of the reason Wendy wanted to be a doctor so badly was because she couldn’t think of anything else to do with her years of hands-on experience at stitching wounds, tweezing random crap out of people’s arms, and getting paid under the table by her mother since her work wasn’t technically legal.

 _2day kid came in with glue stick up his nose! hilarious!_ 3 crying while laughing emojis, nose emoji, 100 emoji.

 _ouch_ , Wendy replied. _did it take long to get it out?_

_2 hrs!!! he would not stop crying_ Multiple clock emojis, single tear emoji, another crying while laughing emoji.

Wendy dreaded the day her mother started using emojis instead of words, like Carrie Fisher, or Cher. Luckily the idea hadn’t occurred to her yet.

 _have you spoken to your brother at all yet?_ No emojis. A bad sign.

 _I’ve texted him a few times_ (read: like 20) _to see if he wants to hang out but he hasn’t responded_

_:(_  
_well, he can’t avoid you forever._  
_and he was so eager to talk to you a year ago! i wonder what happened_

_¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_

_:O_  
_what’s that!!!_

_it’s a shrug_  
_¯\\_(ツ)_/¯_  
_see like the part in the middle is the face and the lines are the arms_

_:OOOOOO_

The conversation continued much in the same vein for the next twenty minutes.

Wendy considered texting Rogue again to see if he wanted to get dinner, but realized she had no idea when Charle was going to be ready to get up. She sighed. She just wanted to spend some time with him. He’d been avoiding her ever since their birthday when they finally met Skiadrum and Grandeeney for the first time since they were kids. Before that they had talked all the time about everything! Books, movies, their cats…

 _did you bring frosch to school with you_

Within ten seconds, he responded.

 _Of course._

Of _course_ that was what he was willing to talk about.

 _i brought charle_  
_do you want to have a kitty playdate some time_

_Fine._

_great!!! i have class tomorrow at 9:30 to 10:45 and 2:30 to 5:30 (labs, ugh) and wednesday at 8:30 to 9:30 and 10:30 to 11:30 and 1:30 to 3:30 but other than that i’m free :)_

_I’ll let you know later._

Well, it was better than nothing! She cheered into her pillow, as she was still lying with her face in it.

Charle stood, stretched, and sauntered off her back. And now she could go get dinner!

Good first day, achieved!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wendy and rogue being twins is my most treasured headcanon. it doesn't make any sense. i love it. 
> 
> please let me know if when wendy said "i'm so gay" you went same because i sure did!!
> 
> i wrote the first bit of this chapter (the huge paragraphs) with the voice typing feature on my phone, and then I got on a computer and it got fun again
> 
> i added a few notes to chapter 1! they're sort of important so i'd appreciate it if you'd give 'em a quick glance


	3. Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tfw you're on a roll  
> (slight title change to match the lyric from the song College by Rogue Wave that the title is supposed to come from)

Wendy’s second day started an hour later than her first, meaning she got an extra hour of sleep, but when she woke up at seven she couldn’t get back to sleep, too nervous thinking about whether or not Chelia was going to be in all her classes today too. So she dragged herself out of bed and went to the convenience store on the bottom floor of her dorm to get some cereal.

When she got back to her floor to get her stuff together so she could head to class, there was an upperclassman who didn’t live there waiting for someone to open the door for her. She was cute (like literally every girl Wendy had encountered so far) and had wild periwinkle hair pulled back behind a headband. There was a thick stack of books tucked under one of her arms, and her backpack seemed to be bulging with more.

“Hey! Could you let me in?” she asked Wendy. 

Wendy, who was very tired and therefore not ready to be polite, asked, “Who are you?”

“Oh! My name’s Levy. I’m a...friend of Lu’s. Uh, Lucy. I want to make sure she’s awake for class.”

Sleepy Wendy, seeing nothing wrong with this explanation or the weird pause before Levy said friend, shrugged and swiped Levy in. “Thanks!” Levy said. She headed off in the opposite direction of Wendy, presumably to annoy Lucy into waking up.

Wendy, once she had eaten her cereal, was much more awake, thanks to the copious amounts of sugar in every bowl of Dragon Charms™. She checked the time. Crap! It was 9! The giant lecture hall where her calc class was held was all the way across campus, and she had short legs! She gave one last kiss to Charle and booked it out of her room.

(She caught a glance of her roommate meditating or something under a tree as she ran. So that’s where she was. She had already left when Wendy woke up at seven. All right, thought Wendy. To each their own.)

It took Wendy fifteen minutes to get to class, running. Well, she stopped running after she crossed the street and was just fast walking, and she had stopped to politely decline some cookies from some Christian group soliciting students on the quad (“please, I actually follow the Ankhseram religion, and my mother’s seen more kids in her clinic with food from strangers related problems than I can count”), but the point was the class was still really far away. The biology building was across the street from the dorm! She’d have to remember to map this stuff out when she signed up for classes next semester.

The hall was still mostly empty when she arrived so she slid into a seat at random and pulled out a notebook and her phone. It was probably just going to be another syllabus day. She opened Neko Atsume to check her cats.

(She wondered, briefly, if Rogue had Neko Atsume, but figured if she asked he’d probably say something like “Who needs an app to play with fake cats when I have a real cat?”)

While she was scrolling through her Facebook feed (more like scrolling through endless posts from her mother, the kind middle aged women made, you know the kind) the lecture hall quickly filled. Inevitably, someone sat down next to her. She largely ignored them until they leaned over and went, “Ooh, is that your boyfriend?” while she was commenting on a photo of her penpal, a kid who lived in Magnolia and was two years younger than her, Romeo Conbolt.

“W-what?” She looked up and met eyes that were Wendy’s favorite shade. 

“The kid on your phone, is he your boyfriend?” Chelia repeated, amused.

“Oh, no! NO, no no no. Romeo is far too young, and a boy, for me, and, oh jeez, TMI…”

Chelia laughed. Apparently Wendy’s obvious distress over someone, and not just someone but the most beautiful girl Wendy had ever seen, thinking she might be a _heterosexual_ , was hilarious to her. “It’s fine!”

Wendy, red as a tomato, went back to typing her comment on Romeo’s selfie with his dad (looking good Macao!! oh and i guess you too Romeo ;)) then closed the tab.

“Hey, you’re that girl I helped move in to Lucy’s floor last Wednesday, right?” Chelia asked suddenly. “Mindy, or something?”

“Wendy.”

“Wendy! Yes. Love the name Wendy. That was you, right?”

Wendy, despite the fact that the new love of her life had just told her that she loved her name and apparently _remembered her_ from _almost a week ago_ , miraculously was able to reply, “Yes! That’s me. Do you, uh, know Lucy?”

Chelia nodded. “Lucy is close friends with Gray, the RA for the boy side of your floor, and I know Gray through my sister, who is best friends with Gray’s friend. Or, are they still friends? I don’t know. I guess some stuff happened between them last year...not the point. The point is yes I know Lucy! She’s really nice. You lucked out on RAs. Like, you could have ended up on 8, and then you would have had _Flare_ as your RA, and then your year would have sucked, trust me.”

“Uh, okay.”

“Ah, I’m rambling, sorry about that. Um, I’m Chelia, I don’t know if you remembered, but, yep! That’s me.” Wendy nodded enthusiastically. “So, uh, what’s your major, Wendy?”

Looked like this conversation was about to lapse into the same general format as every other conversation Wendy had had for the past four months. “I’m a biochem major, but I’m doing pre-med. What about you?”

“History pre-med! A little weird, yeah, but my advisor says it’ll probably be okay as long as I keep focused. I didn’t add pre-med until the end of last year, though, so I’m taking intro courses this semester. Intro to Zoo, Chem 1, the Zoo lab, and calc.” She gestured to the mostly full room. “Plus an elective to get my English credit out of the way! What about you?”

Wendy was not sure how to go about this. Should she just tell her that they were in literally all of the same classes? Or just play it cool? How would she even play this cool. She was honestly surprised she hadn’t managed to spontaneously combust at any point during their conversation. 

“Uh, I’ve got Intro to Zoo and Chem 1 as well as a women’s studies class on Monday Wednesday Friday, and just this and the Zoo lab on Tuesday Thursday.”

Chelia grinned. “Wait. We might be in all the same classes.”

Wendy, who already knew they were, just went, “Really?”

“Do you have a copy of your schedule? We should compare,” Chelia told her, pulling a rumpled piece of paper out of her bag. Wendy pulled a very similar piece of paper out of a folder in her own bag. They held them next to each other and compared. Chelia leaned in close to Wendy to examine them more closely

“Exactly the same,” Wendy said. She stuffed her schedule back in her bag, but Chelia did not move away, instead opting to speak softly into Wendy’s ear as the professor had finally showed and was setting up.

“I didn’t see you in any of them yesterday! I do like to sit in the front, maybe that’s why. I just sat here since it was the closest empty seat I could find today. But I’m glad I did! We should sit together tomorrow. What do you think?” Chelia’s breath was hot on Wendy’s cheek.

Wendy’s mouth seemed to be operating completely independently of her brain because she said, “Yeah! Then we could compare notes and stuff if one of us missed, or something.” If Wendy’s brain had been in charge, her mouth would likely have said something completely different. Thankfully, her head was still acting rationally, and did not turn and allow her mouth do something stupid and impulsive.

“Great! I’ll save a seat for you tomorrow, unless you get there first, and then you’ll save one for me, and--oh, it’s starting.” She pulled away from Wendy and pulled out her pencil to take notes on the syllabus.

Wendy, slightly shell-shocked from that encounter, did not do anything but stare blankly at the monitor at the front of the room for the first fifteen minutes of class. She started taking really bad notes after that, but was still distracted by the way Chelia’s breath had tickled her cheek.

At the end of class, Chelia packed up quickly, claiming she had a reading group to get to (which, where did she go to sign up for a reading group that started the second day of class?) which left Wendy to dazedly stumble back to her room.

She did not have class until 2:30, which left her plenty of time to repeat the night before and whine “I’m sooooo gaaaaaaaaaaaay,” into her pillow until she felt better.

She bumped into Lisanna in the bathroom before lunch, and was consequently invited to eat with her and her friends. They met them in the caf. Lisanna’s friends were, apparently, a fidgety girl dressed for winter despite it being August named Juvia, and a brash girl dressed for the beach named Cana.

Though Cana’s breath stank of alcohol (which, it was 11:30 am, what the hell) and Juvia referred to herself exclusively in the third person, they still were surprisingly nice and willing to answer all her inane freshman questions. Including the ones about people Wendy had met.

“Oh! Lisanna, you said you’ve been friends with the security officer Erza since you were kids, right?”

“Yep! My family fostered kids and Erza lived with us for a few years before the state moved her for some reason.”

“Oh, wow… um, what I wanted to ask was, what was up with her and Lucy? Are they...together or something?” Nice job assuming everyone is gay, Wendy. They were probably just really good friends.

Juvia made a constipated noise, Cana choked on her drink, and Lisanna frowned. “Well, they used to be, the year before I came. I’m a sophomore, Lucy’s a junior, and Erza’s a senior. But they, uh, aren’t anymore. Erza’s engaged or something, I don’t even know, they keep passive aggressively changing their relationship statuses on Facebook, and Lucy’s got some weird thing going with a girl in the English department. But they’re still friends! It was an amicable breakup.”

Oh. So maybe everyone was gay. Well, maybe not everyone. Someone she knew had to be straight, right? Being gay was an outlier.

“That’s not what Gray said,” Juvia muttered into her water glass.

“Wait, what? What did Gray say?” Lisanna asked, extremely interested.

“I-it’s none of Juvia’s business. Juvia is pretty sure he was drunk when he told her, anyway, since it was right after the party with Ultear--”

“Come oooon, Juvia. I won’t tell anyone! And neither will Wendy. Right, Wendy?” Lisanna patted her back.

“I-I won’t tell anyone!”

So Juvia told them.

“But that’s just what Gray said,” she finished. “Juvia has class in twenty minutes and needs to go. Lunch tomorrow, same time?”

“Sure!” replied Lisanna. 

“You know it,” said Cana.

Juvia looked at Wendy. “Will you be joining us again?” she asked.

“M-me?” The other three girls nodded. “Oh, well, I have class until 11:30, but I should be able to make it after that.”

“Then Juvia will see you tomorrow.” 

Cana and Lisanna launched into a conversation about someone named Gajeel as soon as Juvia was out of earshot. Wendy, not knowing who Gajeel was, checked her phone.

There was a Facebook notification.

_Chelia Blendy wants to be friends on Facebook_

Wendy had never hit “accept” so fast in her fucking life.

“Oh, that’s Sherry’s little sister! You guys are friends, huh?” What was WITH people looking at her phone over her shoulder. Thank god she never did anything illicit, but still! Invasion of privacy!

“Oh, yeah, we’re in all the same classes and she helped me move in…” Wendy murmured.

Cana leaned over the table to look at Wendy’s phone. “She’s cute. You gonna hit that?”

 _“What?”_ Wendy squeaked. 

“Oh, man, I got a gay vibe off of you, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were--”

_“I’m gay I’m just also asexual what the heck Cana!!!”_

“Ohhhh,” said Cana, leaning back. “Sorry ‘bout that. So, you’re _not_ gonna hit that? But you still wanna take her out on dates and shit?”

“Cana!”

“What, I just wanna hear all the hot gossip about the freshman. Sorry for prying, Wendy.”

“I think I’m full now I’m just going to go back to my room see you tomorrow!” Despite the fact that her plate was still half full, Wendy took it and her cup and put them in the dirty dish pile, then got the hell out of the cafeteria.

“You scared her off,” Lisanna told Cana, smacking her over the head from all the way across the table.

“I’ll just apologize tomorrow. NBD.”

Rogue texted her while she was walking back to the dorms, a picture of Frosch, so she sent one back of Charle when she got back, and then nervously paced around the room for a little while.

College was sure full of weird conversations about her sexuality so far!!!

She made it on time to her lab, though, and though she wasn’t placed in a lab group with Chelia they did exchange numbers afterward, so that was an upside.

She ate Pizza Hut with Laki in their room for dinner, and exchanged more pictures of Charle with Rogue.

Day 2 review: Pretty decent!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is so not edited
> 
> people are like "write what you know" so weird interactions on the way to class might be happening a lot
> 
> (my school is in the bible belt and i'm jewish. i have learned not to tell people i'm jewish when they want to talk to me about jesus. i have regrets.)
> 
> idk where this is going but somehow a plot might be happening? what happened between lucy and erza, ooooh. what about lucy and levy? what happened at the party with ultear? is juvia still in love with gray? tune in yall
> 
> someone wanted to know what happened a few years ago with drinking on campus that's also based on something that happened on my campus. so much of this is just my personal experience shoved into wendy except our sexualities aren't exactly the same.


	4. Wendy Gets A Job

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> several edits in previous chapters:
> 
> Magnolia University is now Fiore University  
> when Levy says "Lu-chan" it's now just "Lu" because i don't want to have to use honorifics through this whole thing  
> "Juvia was dressed for winter despite it being winter" has been changed to "despite it being August" (thanks to GemmaRose for pointing that one out!)
> 
> these chapters are written at 1 in the morning and immediately posted so if you see any typos please tell me :)

Wednesday was a bit different from Monday in that Chelia actually kept her promise and saved a seat for Wendy in all their classes. Wendy was quickly learning how to hold conversations without even using her brain, considering it went on break every time Chelia looked at her and continued to blast Elton John when they were within fifty feet of each other.

She ate lunch with Lisanna’s friends again, and Cana apologized for embarrassing her so badly the day before, then immediately started interrogating her about Chelia.

“All I’m saying is, you’re cute, you could have a chance! Sherry--her sister--is married, ya know, so she’s in that weird mindset where she has to get everyone else into a relationship, and she’s super worried because Chelia’s never dated anyone before. She could start going out with you to get her sister off her back!”

Wendy wilted a little. “I don’t want her to date me just so her sister will leave her alone…”

“Oh shit, no that’s not what I meant!”

“What Cana is trying to say is, if maybe she’s on the fence about asking you out because she’s shy or something, the idea of Sherry leaving her alone will give her that extra push she needs,” explained Lisanna. 

“Maybe,” mumbled Wendy into her pasta. The sauce was really watery and it, combined with this conversation, was really starting to bum her out.

“Juvia thinks you should try to build your friendship with her before you try anything. What if it turns out the two of you are not compatible? Extensive research is key,” Juvia said, taking a bite of salad.

“She says that, but what she means is stalk the poor girl for six months until she gets fed up and makes out with someone else in front of you to get you off her back,” Cana said from behind the hand she was holding up between herself and Juvia.

“Rude!” cried Juvia. “Cana would have you take a ‘completely platonic’ bubble bath with her before ever telling her your feelings.”

“ _Wow_ , Juvia, you really wanna go there? How about when you--”

“Girls!” interrupted Lisanna. “This is really not the time or the place. We’re trying to help Wendy.”

“You guys really don’t have to do that,” protested Wendy, “even if it is really nice of you. I don’t have much experience, um, obviously, but I could try to give you advice if you wanted?”

“I have a boyfriend,” said Lisanna.

“Yeah, we’re all taken here,” Cana added with a shrug. “Isn’t that right, honeybunch?” She slung an arm around Juvia’s shoulders.

“Hmph. Get me some cheesecake to apologize for the stalking comment and we’ll see.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Cana stood and walked off to the dessert station.

“I still want to help though! I could...babysit your pets? Administer basic first aid? Distract your roommates?” Her face burned as she gave the last option, but it was all she could think of.

“Juvia has no pets, rarely is injured, and no roommates or suitemates. But thank you.” Juvia smiled at her.

“How did you get a suite to yourself?” Wendy asked.

Juvia went red and looked down at her plate, muttering something about “the nice dorm people” and “Juvia’s needs.” Wendy figured she should probably drop it.

“Actually, I might take you up on that petsitting thing. I love Happy, but he does not leave Natsu alone! Uh, Natsu’s my boyfriend, and Happy’s his cat. It’s hard to get private time when there’s a cat constantly trying to get in on the action, y’know?”

“I would love to babysit him!” Wendy said. “He and Charle could be friends! Charle is my cat. Have you met her yet?”

“I didn’t know you brought a cat with you! You should have told me like, as soon as you moved in. Honest mistake. I’d love to meet her after lunch.”

Cana slid in with cheesecake for Juvia and peanut butter pie for herself. “Who are we meeting?”

“Wendy’s cat, Charle.”

“What is it with you and cats, Lisanna?”

Chelia didn’t come up again.

After her last class of the day, Wendy figured she’d grab some snacks at the Walgreens a few blocks from campus. She got some gummy worms and a chocolate bar. Her purchase was less than five dollars.

Her card was declined.

She left the Walgreens without her snacks and immediately called her mother. “Mom there’s something wrong with my debit card!”

_“What’s up?”_

“I tried to buy some snacks and it declined my card!”

_“Lemme check your balance, hold on.”_

Wendy paced nervously for a few minutes while her mom pulled up the bank’s webpage. _“Oh, wow, Wen.”_

“What is it?”

_“You have two dollars.”_

“...What?”

_“There are two dollars in your checking account. You’ve got a little in your savings, but…”_

“How could I have spent so much money?”

_“Looks like it was mostly textbooks and pizza. Huh. I know it’s only your first semester, but maybe you should try to get a job, hon.”_

“A job? But my only skills are treating wounds! Who’s going to hire me?”

_“See if any fast food places near campus are hiring. I’ll move some money over from your savings, okay? Don’t panic. Love you.”_

“Love you too, Mom. Thanks.”

Wendy hung up, and immediately panicked.

“What am I gonna doooooo,” she moaned, falling back against the outer wall of the Walgreens. “How am I gonna buy food for Chaaaaarle.”

“Are you all right?”

Wendy looked up. The sun was in her eyes, but a woman had walked up and blocked it. The light framed her gorgeously and reflected off her long, pure white hair. She smiled reassuringly at Wendy.

Are you an angel? was the first thing that came to Wendy’s mind as an answer, but she figured that was probably the wrong reaction to have. “I, I’m fine. Just, uh, money troubles.”

“I’m sorry to hear that! You know, actually, I’m looking for some extra help where I work right now. Do you think you’d be interested?”

“Where do you work?” 

“Subway.”

An angel who worked at Subway. Weirder things had probably happened. “Uh, sure. What’s your name?”

The angel smiled again, this time with all her teeth. “I’m Mirajane. Now, it’s just a few doors down. We’ll get you an application and see if we can’t get you in by the end of the week.”

“Are you an angel?” Wendy mumbled.

Mirajane laughed.

_“Oh jeez I didn’t mean to say that out loud!!”_

“It’s okay, I get that surprisingly a lot. I’m no angel! Just ask my sister, I used to be downright demonic when we were kids! Come on, let’s get you into some air conditioning.” Mirajane offered Wendy a hand and led her fifty feet down the sidewalk and into a Subway.

Wendy was given a cherry Coke, a double chocolate chip cookie, and a job application. “I have to go, but just give that to Warren when you’re finished, and we’ll give you a call within a couple of days. See you soon!” Mirajane waved to her as she left the restaurant, presumably to go save more lost souls in need with her charming smiles and gentle hands. 

Wendy handed in her application after about twenty minutes. “Um, what’s it like working here?” she asked Warren.

“It’s alright. Mira’s great. Sometimes customers can be a bit...much, and it sucks having to stand around so much, but it could be a lot worse. Mira’s weeded out the worst of the people who worked here, so everyone’s pretty cool. Do you wanna get a sandwich while you’re here?” Warren asked, gesturing to the baine, full of sandwich ingredients of questionable quality.

“No thanks, I should be getting back to my dorm.”

“Cool. See you later.”

“Yeah.”

Rogue texted her while she was walking back to the dorm. _Frosch and I are free this weekend._

_cool! me and charle should be too but i might have just gotten a job_

_Oh. Good luck._

_thank you! i really need it haha i am a little broke_

_Oh_

_let’s plan for 3 on saturday and if i have to work i’ll let you know before then okay?_

_That’s fine._

The rest of her week went as normal, although her classes had finally started up, giving her more homework than she initially thought she’d have. That was no problem! She could do it.

Mira called her Friday afternoon to let her know she was hired, and that she wanted her to come in at eleven on Sunday. “Does that work?”

“Yes! I’ll see you then!” She fist pumped. “Yes! I got a job, Charle! Soon you’ll be eating that good canned stuff.”

Charle meowed at her and went back to napping on Wendy’s pillow.

 _i got a job!_ she posted on Facebook later that night. It got four likes, which was probably some kind of record for her. She did not have many Facebook friends.

 _where are you working?_ someone texted her, about an hour later. It was Chelia! Why did Chelia want to know where she was working?

_the subway a few blocks off campus, why?_

_you should let me know when you’re working so i can come and visit you!_

_let me learn to make a sandwich first, and then i’ll tell you haha_

How nonchalant. It was the complete opposite of the massive nuclear meltdown currently happening in Wendy’s mind at the thought of Chelia wanting to visit her at work.

_it’s a date! ;)_

The previous nuclear meltdown had nothing on this one. It was like each of the major glands in Wendy’s brain were made of thousands of nuclear power plants, and their reactors all failed instantaneously. The fallout would be legendary. Certain parts of Wendy’s brain would never be habitable again. 

She went through the bathroom and pounded on Lisanna and Miki’s door. “Lisannaaaaa I need your help!” she yelled.

“What’s up?” Lisanna opened the door, dressed to the nines in a kitty themed onesie.

“You look cute. What does this _mean?_ ” she asked, shoving her phone at her suitemate.

Lisanna glanced through the messages. “Oh, you’re working at Subway? My sister’s the manager there!”

“Mirajane’s your sister? Huh. Wait that’s not what I mean! Look at what she said! What does it _meeeeean?_ ”

Lisanna chuckled. “It means she likes you, Wendy. Nice. It only took you a week to get the cute girl to fall for you, that’s got to be some kind of record.”

“But Lisanna what if she’s just saying that because it’s a saying? What if she’s just being nice? Lisannaaaaaaaa.”

“Listen, Wendy, I’ve been dating the same guy since I was a junior in high school, and now I’m a sophomore in college. I’m probably not the best person to talk to about flirting and stuff. But, I can get you advice directly from the master!” She smiled and pointed at Wendy. “She’s got a great success rate in consulting.”

“In consulting? What, she can’t follow her own advice?”

“Eh, she’s had some bad breakups. But I promise she’ll be able to help you with your own stuff just fine.”

“Who is it?” Wendy asked, shoving her phone back into the right front pocket of her shorts.

“You already know her! It’s none other than the beautiful RA of Gaebolg 10, our very own Lucy Heartfilia.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NEXT CHAPTER: Lucy gives Wendy romantic advice, talks a little about her previous endeavors, of which there are quite a few. Also, a kitty playdate, and Wendy's first day at work! 
> 
> we'll see if I can fit all that in lmao
> 
> this edition of "write what you know": wendy gets a job at subway  
> i have a job at subway and i fucking hate it. so will wendy! maybe. we'll see.
> 
> there are 3 main dorms named after the three men who assisted the first president of the university financially in funding: Gaebolg Tower, for Precht Gaebolg, Sequen Tower, for Warrod Sequen, and Dreyar Tower, for Yuri Dreyar


	5. Lucy Love Bunny

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no first day at subway, but we do get some rogue & wendy bonding! and some more confusing insight into lucy's love life. nothing concrete, of course. that would be too easy.

Lisanna whipped out her own phone and shot off a text. “I’m checking to see if Lucy is free right now,” she explained.

“Can’t we just go look at her door? That’s where her RA office hours are.”

“This isn’t an RA problem, though, Wendy. This is a Lucy Love Bunny problem.”

Lucy Love Bunny…?

“Um, okay.” She wasn’t going to ask. She was sure there was an explanation that she was going to hear whether she wanted to or not. 

Lisanna’s phone buzzed. “She says to come over whenever for a consultation.”

“Do I need to pay her somehow?”

Lisanna waved dismissively. “You’ll talk about all that at the meeting. Now, go. You want to know what to do as soon as you can, right?”

“Oh! Yes! Thank you!”

“Wait, real quick, gimme your number so I can text you if I ever need to take you up on that catsitting offer.”

“Oh, right.”

Five minutes later found Wendy in Lucy’s room. She had been brought into the office that could be seen by everyone on the floor and straight into what Lucy called her “inner sanctum.” It was a comfy looking room, with a large bookshelf across from the bed which had a plain white duvet. There was a matching dog bed at the foot of the human bed where her dog (?) was currently snoozing away. Wendy was sitting in a surprisingly comfortable armchair that looked to be at least 30 years old (“her name is Matilda,” Lucy informed her) while her RA was perched on the bed itself.

“So! One of my own freshman comes to me for advice, recommended by Lisanna. I’m glad you’re making friends here so fast. But what seems to be the problem?” she asked. “Boy troubles? Girl troubles? Troubles with people who choose to identify elsewhere on the gender spectrum?”

“Uh...she’s a girl…”

“What’s the problem?” Lucy asked, crossing her legs. 

“Well, I met her on move in day...and then I realized she was in all of my classes...and then on Tuesday she sat next to me in class and since then she’s been saving seats for me in all our classes! And I made a Facebook post about how I got a job at Subway--”

“Oh, the one where Mira works? Nice.”

“--how does everyone know my manager at Subway, _anyway_. She texted me about it, and, and what does this _mean?_ ” She pulled her phone out of her pocket, unlocked it, and shoved it in Lucy’s face.

Lucy read the texts. “Hmm. This could be one of two things. Either she said ‘it’s a date!’ because it’s a common phrase and worked well in the situation and she just wants to be your friend, OR, she said it because she wants to date you.”

“I thought of that! How do I figure it out?”

“You really just gotta play it by ear, Wendy. But trust me, it’s not nearly as bad going into something thinking it’s probably platonic when it turns out the person actually likes you as it is going into something you _think_ is a date when they don’t like you that way at all, at least in my experience. I’ve done both! Oh, Yukino…” Lucy stared out the window wistfully.

Wendy sat awkwardly in her armchair, waiting for Lucy to give her back her phone. “Um, so what do you suggest…?”

“Well, you could always just ask her.” Lucy shrugged. “But I’m guessing that’s not really an option for you right now?” she added when she saw the horrified look on Wendy’s face. Wendy nodded. “Right. You look like the kind of person who doesn’t like to take much initiative out of fear of the results. That’s not an insult, lots of people are like that! You can try taking little steps instead. Does she flirt with you a lot?”

“I...don’t know? What does flirting look like? I was homeschooled my whole life.”

“Oh Ankhseram,” Lucy muttered. “Of course you were. Uh, well, how often does she look at you? How often does she touch you? Does she laugh when you tell her stories, even stories that aren’t that funny? How often does she initiate conversation? It sounds like she definitely likes you, from what you’ve already described.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” Wendy asked. “Lisanna said you’d dated a few people before, like the security officer Miss Erza, but…”

“I’ve been in lots of relationships, of varying degrees of intensity and various lengths. I’ve even dated a boy, although that didn’t exactly last. It’s a funny story for another time. And yeah, me and Erza were together for...four or five months? before we realized we were looking for different things and decided to end it.” Lucy shrugged. “I’m single now, though. Gotta focus on my studies! Can’t make my mom proud if I fail all my astronomy classes, y’know?”

“Oh, I…yeah, my mom’s a doctor and that’s definitely a big part of why I’m doing pre-med so I think I get what you mean.”

Lucy smiled beatifically. “That’s really sweet, Wendy. I’m sure you’ll be a great doctor.”

“Thank you!” Wendy flushed. No one had ever outright said that to her before. “I’m sure you’ll be a great astronomer and your mom will be proud of you too!”

“Thanks, Wendy, that means a lot.” Lucy wiped her eyes. “So. About this girl. See how much she flirts with you, and that’ll give you a better idea if she means date or just hanging out. And don’t forget to actually tell her when she can come visit you! Otherwise this’ll all have been for nothing, got it?”

“Got it! Thanks, Lucy!” Wendy stood to leave, but Lucy held out her hand, signalling for her to stop.

“You think you get all this great info for nothing? No, now we discuss payment.”

Wendy dropped back into the chair. “I don’t have any money,” she began nervously.

“I know. You just got a job at Subway. But Lisanna tells me you petsit?” 

“Yes! I can watch Plue for you any time you want, just tell me in advance so I can make sure I’m not busy.”

Lucy nodded. “It’ll be Plue or a cat I know. It depends on who has custody of him that week, and if we have plans...I’ll just text you, give me your number.” They exchanged numbers, and then Wendy was allowed to leave.

The next day was Saturday, which meant Wendy got to sleep in. When she woke at eleven, Laki was already gone. On a hunch, Wendy looked out the window, and there was her roommate, meditating under a tree again. She wondered if she was going to keep that up when winter came and it started snowing. She supposed she’d just have to wait and see.

She grabbed a burger for lunch and then went back to her room to clean. She didn’t want her brother thinking she was a slob! “Excited for your playdate, Charle?” she asked her cat while she made her bed.

Charle, sleeping soundly, did not answer. 

Wendy had downloaded some phone games over the previous week (at Chelia’s suggestion) and preoccupied herself with a puzzle game that involved moving colored tiles until they fit a certain palette while soothing music played in the background until Rogue arrived. At precisely 2:58, someone knocked on her door.

She jumped up and answered it. Standing there, a good foot taller than her, holding a bright pink cat carrier, was her twin brother. They looked nothing alike, although they apparently had the same nose. Wendy wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but her mother insisted that they were the same, and that they got it from her. Rogue actually took after her mother more than Wendy did, with his sharp eyes and big forehead he kept hidden behind a fringe. Neither of them had their mother’s pink hair, a fact they were both okay with. Wendy had their father’s eyes, chin, and basic bone structure.

No one ever believed her when she showed them pictures of Rogue and said they were twins. “We’re fraternal twins, not identical, that’s why we don’t look alike and I’m biologically female while he’s biologically male!”

She let him inside and closed the door. He set the cat carrier down and opened it. A little green cat (why was her brother’s cat green, she always thought it was a trick of the light when he sent her pictures but no Frosch was _actually green_ ) in a pink frog suit hesitantly stepped out. Rogue removed the cat carrier before he could get shy and return.

“Is that his Halloween costume from last year?” she asked.

“He likes it,” Rogue replied.

“How does he use the litter box?”

“He makes me take it off before he goes, and then put it back on when he’s done.”

Seriously? She was glad Charle was never _that_ demanding.

Speaking of Charle, apparently she’d noted someone new entering her space and was coming down from the bed to investigate. She sauntered up to Frosch, currently checking out Wendy’s dresser, and meowed demandingly. They sniffed each other, and Frosch hesitantly licked a stripe on Charle’s forehead. Charle licked his cheek. They both started purring.

“Aww, they like each other.”

“They are cousins. It would be problematic if they didn’t,” replied Rogue.

“Cousins?” Wendy grinned at her brother.

“Shut up. You know what I mean.”

Wendy sat in her desk chair. Rogue took Laki’s, as she was still communing with nature. “So, uh, how are you?” she asked him.

“Fine. My classes seem simple enough, and though my roommate can be annoying, we get along well enough. What about you?”

“Ah, my roommate, Laki, is really nice, though she mostly keeps to herself. She really likes nature, I guess? And she’s a vegetarian. My classes are about as hard as I thought they’d be, but I really though my Zoo lab would be more fun than it is. It’s pretty boring so far. Have you made many friends?”

“Like I said, my roommate and I get along well enough.”

She frowned. “But I meant, outside your roommate.”

“There’s...no one right now.” He stared at the cats.

“Tell me about your roommate,” Wendy said.

“Not much to tell. He uses too much hair product, doesn’t own any shirts that aren’t crop tops, likes to have the light on when he sleeps like a baby.” Wendy giggled. “He’s got a girlfriend, I think she’s his girlfriend, and she’s pretty cute, I guess. She’s around a lot.”

“She can be your friend!”

“Hmph. Have you made friends while you’ve been here?”

“Oh, well, there’s Laki, like I said, and my RA is really nice and gave me advice on something, and then there’s my suitemate Lisanna who I eat lunch with, and her friends Juvia and Cana, who I guess are dating? And Chelia.” She blushed. “Chelia is really great.”

“Hm? What’s so great about her?”

“She’s just...ah! She’s really pretty, Rogue, and also really smart and funny, and we’re in all the same classes, and she’s a pre-med person too which means we’ll probably see a lot of each other after this semester, and she wants to visit me at work, and…”

Rogue was staring at her now.

“What?” she demanded. “Can’t I think my new friend is cute?”

“Friend, huh?” Rogue smiled.

“Shut up. You know what I mean.”

“It’s not just a river in--”

“I can’t believe of all the people to give me that cheesy line it’s you! I expected better of you, _little brother_.”

Her twin glared. “We’re twins. Besides, Dad said I was older.”

“Did Dad give birth to us?”

He sniffed and looked back at the cats. “Just because Mom gave birth to us and is a certified medical professional…”

Wendy laughed. 

They chatted for another hour or so while Charle allowed Frosch to play with a few of her toys. When the conversation trailed off Rogue said something about having a lot of homework and packed Frosch up to go back to their room.

“Please don’t be a stranger. We could get dinner sometime, or do another kitty playdate. I could meet your roommate and see his crop tops with my own two eyes! I know it’s not going to happen overnight, but...I want us to be siblings.”

“We’re already--”

“I mean, to have a sibling relationship. Not just happen to be two kids with the same parents. When I call you my brother, I want it to mean something. You know?”

Rogue nodded slowly. “I...agree. I’ll see about having Charle over.” He adjusted Frosch’s carrier and used his free hand to pat Wendy’s shoulder. “You’re a good sister, Wendy. I’m glad you’re my twin.”

He wouldn’t meet Wendy’s eyes, but that was the most progress she’d gotten since they’d started talking a year ago. She maneuvered herself around Frosch’s carrier and hugged him. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah. See you soon.”

Wendy’s happiness lasted the rest of the day, and she went to bed with a smile on her face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lot of people have characters in ft fic say things like "oh mavis" or "oh my mavis" instead of god despite there being zero instances of this in canon and no explanation for it in fic, so. have one of the two gods mentioned in canon for those kinds of interjections. not all of 'em because i'm lazy but. in this au mavis founded a school, why would they be deifying her?
> 
> lucy is double majoring in astronomy and english with a minor in business because lucy loves to suffer in this au i guess (as someone who's doing 2 majors and 2 minors, that's really the only explanation)
> 
> today on "write what you know": my suitemate christiane (the best person in the universe, probably) got a super old recliner off craigslist, stuck it under her bed, and named it matilda. it was my go-to spot when i was in that room last year. when i went to her apartment i immediately went for the chair. her then roommate, my now roommate, has one named vincent. i don't like vincent.
> 
> the game wendy is playing is called har・mo・ny and it's super fun and extremely frustrating at times


	6. First Day Of Work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wendy has a decent first day, and saves a man's life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well this wasn't planned at all  
> literally i had no plans for him to be included but i basically rolled the "who is wendy friends with" roulette wheel and it landed on him, so here he is!

Wendy arrived for her first day of work 15 minutes early. The first thing Mira had her do was fill out some tax paperwork and hand her an ugly green shirt with a red collar, a black waist apron, and baseball cap that said “SUBWAY” to change into. After that, she showed her how to clock in on the cash register, and then walked her through putting vegetables on the sandwich.

“Three of whatever they ask for for every six inches, except for things like olives and lettuce and spinach. Just give them a good handful of those. And do three lines of whatever sauce! Thick sauces go on the meats, thin sauces go on the veggies. If it’s a footlong you cut it in half, and then just wrap it like this!”

Mira demonstrated wrapping a sandwich in paper. “Now you try!” She handed Wendy the loaf of bread. Wendy clumsily but successfully managed to wrap it the way Mira had shown her. “Great job! Now, it’s 11:30 so the lunch rush should be about to start. I’m going to have you in the back doing dishes and fetching things your first day, and then when it slows down you can practice your veggies more.”

“Okay!”

When customers started to trail in, Mira took her place at the meat station, Warren stood at the register, and another coworker she hadn’t been formally introduced to yet named Max took veggies. 

It wasn’t so bad, not nearly as bad as she thought it would be. After the rush ended Mira had her restock the chips and drink cooler, and clean up the lobby. Then there was afternoon prep, and at 4 her shift ended.

“What did you think?” Mira asked her as she untied her apron and stuffed it into her cap, which she then put in her bag.

“Uh, it was fine?”

“Good! Don’t forget to write down the schedule. None of the times I have you scheduled for conflict with your classes, right?”

Wendy checked the schedule tacked to the wall in the back behind the cooler. “Nope!”

“Great! Next time we’ll have you front and center, don’t worry.” Mira winked at her.

“Uh, okay!”

“Okay see you later Wendy!” 

Campus was relatively empty as it was a Sunday afternoon, so Wendy walked in silence back to her dorm. There was an interesting person in the middle of the quad, though.

He was covered head to toe in dark swathes of fabric, what looked like a cloak, and a face mask, despite it being the end of August and the middle of the day. He was standing in the middle of a circle of sticks that were all firmly planted in the ground, and was chanting...something.

Ignore him, Wendy. Just walk by and don’t say anything, leave him alone, it’s not worth it-- “Are you all right?” she called.

He stopped chanting and looked at her. 

“Aren’t you hot in all those clothes?” she asked. 

He tugged down his mask. Underneath it, he was unexpectedly handsome, although Wendy wasn’t a fan of the tattoo on the side of his face, which was bright red and sweaty. “Who are you?” he asked her instead of answering.

“I’m Wendy. What are you doing?”

“This is all part of my senior thesis.”

Okay, that didn’t make any sense, but she’d bite. “What are you studying?”

“Meteorology.”

Of course. “What does this have to do with...that?”

“I’m trying to summon clouds.”

“Why the...getup?”

“When it’s cloudy, it gets cold. This is just preparation.”

“Why don’t you have it off to the side and then put it all on when it does get cloudy? Because you look like you might have heatstroke.”

“Whatever do you mean?” he panted. She noticed he was leaning on one of his sticks for support.

“Uh…”

“Excuse me.” He turned away from her and vomited.

“Okay! I’m just going to call an ambulance for you now.” Wendy, being was a seasoned healthcare professional, was not phased by the vomit or clearly sick man who was a good foot and a half taller than her collapsing onto the ground. She pulled out her cell phone and approached with caution. She didn’t want to get vomit on her work shoes.

“That’s fine, I don’t need…” His breathing was extremely labored and he looked like he was about to pass out at any second.

“Yes, I have a man here suffering from heat stroke. We’re in the middle of the Fiore University quad. Please hurry, he’s just vomited and looks like he’s about to faint. I’ll move him into the shade while we wait. Thank you.”

“You really shouldn’t have done that,” he told her while she dragged him under a nearby tree.

“You’re lucky I came by when I did or something seriously bad could have happened to you!” she chided. “What were you thinking? How long have you been out here, anyway?”

“Four hours, give or take…”

“Four hours in this weather in those clothes without a break? Are you crazy, sir?”

“Call me Mystogan.”

“Are you crazy, Mystogan?”

“I’m a scientist, Wendy.”

She sighed. “So that’s a yes.”

The paramedics arrived fifteen minutes later, armed with a stretcher to take Mystogan to the ambulance, which was idling at the nearest curb. They asked her if she wanted to come along to make sure he was all right.

“Thank you, but I don’t have a way home from the hospital. But, here is my phone number,” she dug a Subway napkin out of her pocket and a pen out of her bag, which she used to scribbled down her cell number, “please tell him to text me that he’s all right. Otherwise I’ll get worried, you know? Haha.”

The paramedics assured her they would do everything in their power to make that happen before the ambulance drove off and Wendy went back to her dorm.

Lucy caught her on the way back to her room. She was with the blue haired girl Wendy had let in a few days ago, and ended up interrupting their conversation to ask, “Hey, how did your first day go?”

“Oh! Fine.” To be honest, after what had just happened with Mystogan, she had completely forgotten about work. She looked at the blue haired girl. “Have we met?”

The girl laughed. “Yes, but you were a little tired, I think. I’m Levy! I’m Lu’s fellow third year English major.”

“I’m Wendy. Um, weird question. Do either of you know a guy named Mystogan?”

Lucy and Levy exchanged glances. “Ye-es,” Lucy finally answered. “How do _you_ know him?”

“I just found him chanting or something in the middle of the quad, and ended up having to call an ambulance for him because he had heat stroke. Do either of you know how to get into contact with him? I gave him my number but he was really out of it so he might not even remember what happened.”

“That sounds like him,” muttered Lucy. “Hold on, let me text his brother what happened. Then I can give you his number.”

“Ah, thanks.”

“Let’s see, it’s--and, Jellal is calling me. Just a sec.” She pressed a button on her phone and held it up to her ear. “Yeah?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have just texted him ‘ur bro’s in the hospital shrug emoji,’” Levy said.

“I’m not the one who--listen, I’ll just put Wendy on, she’ll explain.” Lucy held out her phone to Wendy. “It’s for you.”

“Hello?”

_“Why is my brother in the hospital, and who are you?”_

“Uh, my name’s Wendy, and I found him in the middle of the quad. He was dressed for winter and then he threw up and then he almost passed out, so I called an ambulance because he clearly had heat stroke! I think the ambulance said Crocus Memorial Hospital.”

_“Thank you. He’s been missing for a few days, I’m glad he’s in a safe place now.”_

“He said something about it being for his senior thesis?”

The man on the other end of the line sighed. It was a sigh that said this was something that happened more often than was normal for regular people like Wendy or him. _“Of course he did. Well, thank you for taking care of him. If there’s anything I can do to repay you--”_

“Just doing my job! I used to sort of be a nurse, so this is all in a day’s work.”

_“O..kay. Well, if you need anything, Lucy has my number. And is, incidentally, in several of the same classes as me.”_

“I had the paramedics give him my number, can you make sure he calls me when he’s better just so I don’t stress out about it forever?”

 _“Of course. Thank you again, Miss Wendy.”_ He hung up.

Wendy handed the phone back to Lucy. “I think I’m going to go take a nap now.”

Levy and Lucy nodded understandingly. “You deserve a nap.”

Wendy walked back to her room, peeled off her work shirt and pants, climbed up into her bed, and fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter chapter because i had no idea what i was doing but next chapter i have at least an inkling. so. that'll be good.
> 
> lucy and jellal are a guilty brotp who will probs be interacting more in the future. i call them "astronomy nerds" that's their (friend)ship name. they both do space magic!
> 
> mystogan is so weird you guys


	7. It's A Date!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter today, but a big one :)

Despite the mess that her sleep schedule was slowly but surely becoming, she made it to her first class Monday morning on time. Chelia was there waiting for her.

“How was your weekend?” she asked brightly, pulling out her notebooks and things.

“Oh, fine. I spent some time with my brother, had my first day at work…”

“Don’t forget to let me know when I can come and visit you!”

“...and I guess I saved a guy’s life yesterday, too.”

“Sorry, what?”

Wendy, still a little tired, wasn’t really thinking about what she was saying and accidentally let what happened with Mystogan slip. “Oh, I found a guy on the quad with heat stroke, so I called him an ambulance. Anyone would have.”

“No, Wendy, that’s…” Chelia sighed. “You’re so cool.”

“Eh? No way! You’re way cooler than me!” Wendy countered, extremely flustered, and now completely awake. “It was really no big thing! He even texted me this morning to say he was fine!” Granted, he had texted her at 4 in the morning, and the text said ‘thnks 4 saving me owe u 1’ with a winky face emoji and the emoji of a person wearing a face mask, but that was basically the same thing, right?

“Hmm, agree to disagree?”

“All right…”

Wendy, so flustered by Chelia calling her cool, forgot to note if the other girl was flirting with her. They chatted through their classes, though. Chelia told her she had an older sister who was married (which Wendy already knew, though she didn’t tell Chelia this) and that she was at Fiore U on a full ride scholarship because of a combination of some test scores and some discoveries she had made completely on accident while researching something for a personal project that she’d published online.

“It’s not up anymore, though. When the Council saw it they asked me to take it down, and then gave me the scholarship to continue my research.”

“That’s so cool! What were you researching?”

“Oh, ancient medical practices and how they intersected with religion, and things like that…” She coughed awkwardly. “Um, so why did you decide to come to Fiore University?”

(A fun fact about Fiore University: everyone there was aware of the fact that, when reduced to its initials, their beloved university was literally called “FU.” In casual conversation, it was rarely referred to as this, usually by its full name. However, at football games, it was common for drunken spectators to scream “F! UUUUUUU!” at the field. Who exactly they were screaming at was the subject of much argument.)

“Ah, well, this is my mom’s alma mater. This is the university where she decided she wanted to become a doctor, and stayed until she did. It’s where she became the person she is today, where she met my dad….of course, that didn’t last, but it still had great results, me and my brother. She’s kind of my biggest hero so I want to be just like her, and I felt like if I came here, where she had some of her most formative experiences, it would help! Um, also because the financial aid was surprisingly good,” she finished awkwardly. She glanced up at Chelia.

There were tears in Chelia’s eyes. Was she crying? What the heck?! “That was so beautiful, Wendy! I hope you achieve your dream! Your mother sounds like a wonderful person!” Her hands were balled into fists of passion.

“I didn’t...even say anything about my mother specifically…” Wendy raised her hands.

“No, but the way you talk about her says it all! I’m sure she’s a person deserving of your utmost respect, and mine! I hope I can meet her someday.” Chelia smiled. 

“M-Me too!”

They grew closer through their classes over the next few weeks. Wendy started working closing shifts on weeknights, and lunch shifts on the weekends.

The word she would use to describe Saturday (game day) lunch shifts? _Hell._

Hell, for weeks and weeks, even though Fiore U didn’t have that great of a football team. The store would be flooded from ten in the morning to nine at night, which was when the closed. Wendy was sure Mira was encouraging it, with the way she encouraged them to accentuate their uniform’s with Fiore U’s colors, and the TV in one corner of the restaurant that broadcast their games.

At least by October she had gotten really good at making sandwiches, so, two weeks before Halloween, after their Wednesday afternoon chemistry lecture, Wendy attempted to casually invite Chelia to lunch at the restaurant.

“So I figure, I’ve been working at Subway for a while, and I remembered how you said you wanted to visit me or something when I first started working there, and I’m sure if I let my manager know in advance that someone was coming to see me she’d let me take a longer break, so what I’m trying to ask is, uh…”

Chelia waved her hand for Wendy to continue. She seemed to be having quite a bit of fun watching Wendy struggle.

“Do you want to come to my Subway sometime and I can make you a sandwich and we can eat together?” Wendy blurted out. Her whole face was red. Oh god. This was it.

Her careful analysis (read: the four times she’d remembered to look for what Lucy had said was flirting) of her past few months with Chelia had led her to conclude that Chelia did flirt with her. Quite a lot! Though her sample size was small, this did not discourage Wendy, who hadn’t taken a statistics class yet and was therefore blissfully ignorant of how skewed her data was. Rather, it raised Wendy’s confidence around Chelia, and she actually found herself consciously flirting back, something she never thought she’d do.

They had hung out outside of class, too! Now that Wendy had money, she was able to get lunch with the girl she liked (platonically, so far) or go out to the movies (platonically) or go ice skating (platonically, and with a group, because it was hard to justify platonically driving to the next town over to go ice skating, just the two of them). Chelia had still not met Rogue, since Rogue was deathly shy (at least, that was Wendy’s hypothesis), but she had met Lisanna and Laki and Miki and had eaten lunch with her while Cana and Juvia were present. They teased her mercilessly about how awkward she’d been the next day (well, Cana had, Juvia had commended her for her bravery) but it had been a step, and hopefully one in the right direction.

That wasn’t to say she had only spent time with Chelia over the past two months. She began to reminisce on the time she’d gone to Mystogan’s house to respond to a very strange text and found he had stolen Levy’s cat. “He doesn’t deserve her,” he hissed at Wendy, until Wendy agreed not to return the cat to whoever “he” was. Her thoughts were interrupted when Chelia opened her mouth and all of Wendy’s focus was suddenly on that.

“I thought you’d never ask!” Chelia grabbed Wendy’s hands. Apparently it was something she did a lot, although Wendy had never seen her do it to anyone else. “When should I be there?”

“Well, it should be a little after the lunch rush so Mira doesn’t get too mad at me...1:00 on Saturday?”

“It’s a date!” Chelia confirmed, with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.

_She said it again!!!_

She’d never said it about anything else they’d done together. Wendy thought it must have been a fluke, when she texted her that, but there she went saying it again! That it was a date! 

“A-A date?”

Crap! Worst possible response!

Chelia dropped her hands. “Oh, I mean, I was just, uh, getting this vibe, and...of course it doesn’t have to be a date, you know. Totally platonic! It’s a totally platonic friend date where you make me food and then we eat it together. Haha…”

Her eyes no longer held their former sparkle, and the look on her face was bittersweet. Wendy’s heart clenched in her chest.

“No!”

“No?”

“It’s a date!” Wendy affirmed, grabbing Chelia’s hands. “Not as friends!”

“Not as friends?” Chelia’s breath caught in her throat.

“Chelia, the truth is, I’ve been wanting to go on a real date with you for a long time. Do you want that?” There Wendy went, using up all her bravery that she had stored for the last few months on this one confession. This was it. The moment of truth.

“Yes! I’ve wanted it for a long time too, Wendy!” She threw her arms around Wendy.

“Then it’s a date!”

“It’s a date!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will probably be more details on what's happened over the past few months with wendy and co. specific incidents, like about levy's cat, wendy's strange friendship with mystogan, more details on lucy's romantic history, perhaps erza's fiancee? oh maybe i'll introduce a bunch of characters and not tell you which one it is...
> 
> or maybe a chapter from chelia's pov. or maybe both! shrug.
> 
> today on write what you know: hellish game days, group excursions to go ice skating (my floor went ice skating one time and a bunch of people got injured BUT we went to BJ's afterward and got pizzookies so it was all good)


	8. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things that happened to Wendy during the past few months.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i went from updating once a day to this! well, to be fair, i was sort of moving. i'm in japan now! i bought fairy tail zero in japanese because as we all know, i love things that are gay and make me sad. (don't worry, i will be doing my darndest to incorporate mavis's incredibly gay first love into this)

Many things of note had happened to Wendy in the two months leading up to midterms and her date with Chelia.

On September 1st, Mystogan showed up at her dorm, completely unannounced. This might have been okay if they had contacted each other at all before then, but there had only been the text saying he was okay and then radio silence until she got back from her afternoon lab and saw him sitting with his back to her door.

“Hi?”

He looked up at her. This time he wasn’t wearing his mask or his cloak, but he was still fully covered. He had a tattoo on the side of his face, and was that blue hair? Well, Wendy couldn’t really say anything, considering she also had blue hair, and her mother’s hair was pink. 

“I have decided how I will pay you back for saving my life.”

“Uh, that’s really not necessary--”

“Do you have a car, Miss Marvell?”

“How do you know my last name?”

He shrugged. “I’ll take that as a no. Luckily for you, I do. As payment for saving my life, I will drive you anywhere you want, at any time, unless I’m in class. Well, certain classes I am willing to skip. You don’t need to worry about gas or anything, just text me and I’ll be there.”

“That’s very kind of you, but unnecessary--”

“I disagree.”

“--and why did you have to come all the way to my exact room to tell me this? How did you even know my room number?”

“I asked my brother.”

“Okay, how does your brother know my exact room number?”

“That’d be my bad.” Wendy turned around. It was Lucy, standing with someone who was the spitting image of Mystogan. That must be his brother. Gerald? Jalil? What was his name again? “Jellal asked me--” Jellal! That was it. “--and when he told me it was so Myst could thank you for saving his life and that he’d come by when I was in I thought it was probably okay. I’m sorry, I guess I assumed he told you he was coming by.”

“Lucyyyyy!”

“I’ll give you a free consultation, okay?” She did look genuinely apologetic.

“I don’t need a consultation though, it’s going fine!”

“Mm, we’ll see. You can save it for a rainy day.”

Mystogan stood. “Well, that was all I had to say.”

_“Why couldn’t you have just said it over the phone, exactly?”_

“It would be less genuine that way,” Jellal explained. “Let’s get home, then. Thanks again, Wendy. Lucy.”

“Thank _you_ for last week’s Galaxies and Cosmology notes!” She patted him on the shoulder and the three of them headed back down the hall.

“You never did say why you missed both days last week.”

“Well, a girl’s gotta have her secrets.”

“Lucy…”

The next time Wendy actually saw Mystogan was a few weeks later, when the aforementioned incident with Levy’s cat took place.

He texted her out of the blue at five in the morning, a text she did not get until she woke up hours later, because it was the weekend and she needed to sleep in after how yesterday afternoon’s test went, and she had the day off. The text just read, _made a mistake please come_ with no address. She ended up texting Lucy to get Jellal’s number to find out where Myst lived. Jellal would have gone with her to find out what was going on, but he was out of town for some kind of art show.

Wendy, after some finagling, got to Myst’s apartment thanks to her brother’s roommate and his car, White Lightning. They left her there, which was good because she ended up talking her new friend down for hours from the weird self-righteous place he was at mentally.

Apparently, years ago, Myst had sold his cat Kiwi to a high school boy because Jellal was moving in and Jellal was allergic to cats. Myst had not wanted to give up Kiwi, but the boy promised to take care of him, and the boy’s cute girlfriend seemed reliable enough to make this a reality. Well, very early that morning, Myst had been out walking (Myst liked to take very early morning walks to study mist and dew and such) and had spotted Kiwi in an apartment window. The apartment was messy, and there appeared to be no one home. So, obviously, Myst had to break in and steal his cat back.

“Doesn’t Jellal still live with you? Won’t this give him some kind of allergic reaction when he gets back?”

“Why do you think I texted you? I thought being pre-med you would carry a good supply of antihistamines around.”

“You have to give the cat back. Look, they even gave him a collar.”

“Her. And they must have changed her name, the collar says Pantherlily.”

Lily meowed when his name was spoken.

“Okay, that doesn’t change the fact that you have to give the cat back.”

“I don’t _have_ to do anything.”

“Yes you do, Mystogan!”

They went back and forth like this for several hours, until, of all people, Lucy showed up, saying she had heard Wendy had been radio silent at Myst’s place for several hours.

“Oh thank god you’re okay!” she said, hugging Wendy tightly. Wendy could not breathe. Lucy had a very enviable bust. “Hey, is that Pantherlily?”

“Her name is Kiwi,” Myst sniffed.

“You know this cat?” Wendy asked.

“My gi--uh, my friend Levy has joint custody of him with her ex, Gajeel.”

Wendy had never heard of joint custody over a cat before, but she supposed she had heard of weirder things, especially since coming to college. “Myst says he catnapped him from some guy’s apartment.”

“Yeah, Gajeel has him this week, he’s probably worried sick. Hold on, I’ll call him.”

Wendy was not going to ask why Lucy had her not-girlfriend’s ex boyfriend’s phone number, or why she held the phone about a foot from her face immediately after pressing the call button. Well, the second part she figured out as soon as the guy answered.

_“Why the fuck are you calling me?”_

It was because Mr. Gajeel was very loud.

“Nice to talk to you again too, asshole,” Lucy replied.

_“No seriously, why the fuck are you calling me? Does Levy need something? Did she get amnesia and loves me again or some shit?”_

“Ha! You wish. Nah, I just found your cat. Nice job letting him get stolen, by the way.”

_“What the fuck? That’s why he didn’t eat his breakfast this morning! Where are you, I’m coming over right now.”_

Lucy gave him Myst’s address. “And wear decent clothes, there’s a kid here.” She hung up before he could say anything else. 

“Kiwi doesn’t want to leave,” Mystogan said with a frown.

She ignored him. “Do you have a ride home?” she asked Wendy. When Wendy shook her head, Lucy sighed. “All right. I’m going go to wait out in my car so I don’t have to deal with that guy. As soon as he gets the cat, come out and I’ll drive you back, all right?”

Gajeel had way too many piercings for Wendy’s comfort, and he was very loud. He chewed out Myst for a solid five minutes before he remembered to ask Wendy, “Wait, who are you?”

“Uhh, Wendy. I’m the one Myst got to come over to help him with...Pantherlily? And I’m basically the reason Lucy came too.”

Gajeel grunted. “Thanks, kid. I owe you one.” Then he messed up her hair and left, cat carrier under one arm.

Myst sighed. “I suppose it’s for the best.”

Lucy drove Wendy home, and that was the end of that.

Also during this time period was the first LGBT+ group meeting that Wendy went to. She did not go to many, but her first was...enlightening, to say the least.

For one, half the people she had already met and made friends with were there. She sat with Juvia and Cana, who were doing their weird arguing flirting thing.

Everyone was wearing pronoun stickers--like nametag stickers, except these had preferred pronouns on them. Wendy had a “she/her” sticker, as did Juvia, and Cana’s said “she OR they WHATEVER YOU LIKE MY DUDES”. It was a heavily modified sticker.

“Nice! Finally got someone to fill in our ‘A’ slot,” Cana said when she sat down with them.

“There are no other asexuals here?” Wendy asked, a little surprised.

“Well, none that are out about it. Gay community can be a little unwelcoming sometimes. It’s like, yeah, they’ve got the L and the G, and sometimes they remember there’s a B, and a few people remember T, and anything else they just turn their noses up at,” Cana explained. 

“Cana and I both fall under the T, technically, but people tend to focus on our, uh, L,” added Juvia. “As they may with you.”

“Oh. That sucks,” Wendy muttered. She thought for a second. “Wait, is that why you have your own room?”

Juvia smiled. “Indeed.”

That day the group discussed polyamory, something Wendy had never heard of before but was very interested in. A girl with rose pink hair stood up to talk about her own experiences.

“The hardest but most integral part, I think, is communication. Because, yeah, I love my girlfriend and I trust her, but boundaries change all the time, and it’s hard not to feel jealous. When that happens, really in any relationship, but _especially_ in a relationship where your girlfriend has a boyfriend but they’re not also you’re boyfriend, you have to let all those feelings out. It can be hard sometimes to let feelings out, trust me, I know! And like, she isn’t even dating him anymore, we’re currently just dating each other, but every time we think we might like someone else, we talk it over and confirm it’s okay. You can’t just cheat on each other and expect no consequences. That’s not how it works. It’s more like...ugh, I’m rambling. But. Yeah. Communicate, don’t cheat.” She flashed an awkward thumbs up to the group.

“Thank you, Meredy. Now, on next week’s agenda….”

During the first week of October, Fiore U had its biggest game of the season against their eternal rivals, Alvarez Tech. As such, on that Friday, all classes were cancelled. Wendy didn’t have work that day, or the day after, by some miracle. She supposed Mira wanted her to save her strength for game day.

When she told Lisanna this, Lisanna was strangely excited. “That’s perfect! Hold on, I have to make a phone call, then I’ll come right back.” She told her this in their shared bathroom when they were brushing their teeth Thursday night, so Lisanna left to her own room. Several minutes later, while Wendy was flossing, Lisanna reappeared. “Can you watch my boyfriend’s cat tomorrow and Saturday? Long weekend means date weekend!”

Wendy gargled some water. “Oh! Uh, I guess?”

“Thank you so much Wendy!!” Lisanna hugged her. “He’ll be over tomorrow around 3 to drop off Happy. Is that okay?”

“I don’t have anything going on, so yeah?”

“Great! Happy is a really nice cat, I’m sure he and Charle will get along. I hope you like Natsu, too!”

And so, that was how she met Natsu, banging on her door at 3 in the morning, wearing flame patterned pajamas.

“Who are you?” she mumbled sleepily. She barely had the chance to take in his appearance before he shoved a squirming cat at her.

“This is Happy! Be good, okay Happy? Me and Lisanna are gonna go now! Bye!” He shut her door.

Ten minutes later, just as she was settling into bed again, there was knocking again, this time at a reasonable volume at least. It was Natsu again, with a very annoyed Lisanna. “I said 3. You thought I meant 3 pm, right?”

“...What?”

“Why would I mean 3 am, Natsu? Why not 3 pm, which would make more sense?”

“You gotta specify these things!”

“I really don’t.”

“What?” Wendy asked again. She was very sleepy.

“See? Look at poor Wendy. We’ve completely ruined her sleep schedule. What are you going to do about this?”

“Happy is already sleeping, look! I can’t just take him home now and then bring him back again in twelve hours! It’ll mess up _his_ sleep schedule!” Natsu gestured to his cat, which was curled up on Wendy’s desk chair. The light was weird, and the cat almost looked blue. Huh.

“Make it up to her! Pay her, or something.”

“I thought you said she’d do it for free!”

“Yeah, but we just woke her up at 3 in the morning, so she deserves some payment.”

“Fine, fine.” Natsu dug his wallet (bright red, with orange duct tape on it--actually, was it a red and orange duct tape wallet?) out of his pajama pants pocket and thrust a few bills at Wendy. “Sorry I woke you up.”

“There. Now I’m going back to bed.”

“But Lisannaaaaa, aren’t you coming to my place?”

“I’ll come to your place after the sun rises, Natsu. Like a normal person.”

Natsu laughed, for some reason. “Okay, as long as you do come over. See you four hours!” He kissed her cheek and ran off.

“I’m not...not at seven in the morning! Jesus.” She sighed. “Sorry, again. Goodnight, Wendy.”

That morning, when Wendy woke up, she was very concerned, as she did not remember the previous night’s event and found herself with an extra cat and an extra two hundred dollars in her hand. When she finally connected the dots, she tried to give the money back to Lisanna to give to Natsu, but Lisanna insisted she keep it, as there was no way Natsu would take it back.

“He throws money around like it doesn’t even matter, you really don’t need to worry about it. Buy yourself something nice, okay? Like some ear plugs, in case this happens again. Really nice ear plugs.”

Wendy bought herself a jumbo bag of those chocolate covered pomegranate seeds, and saved the rest for a rainy day.

Wendy did also run into the male RA for her floor at one point. Chelia was coming over for a study date--sorry, study _meeting_ \--and her older sister and her older sister’s guy friend were dropping her off, as they apparently had some business near the dorms. Chelia, apparently, had an off campus apartment with her sister and her sister’s fiance, but said she would have no problem getting to Wendy’s room.

She met Chelia and the other two by the elevators. Also waiting by the elevators was a guy with dark hair, texting someone angrily. All his clothes had paint spatters on them. He also seemed to be tugging at them a lot, subconsciously.

The elevator opened and Chelia and her entourage stepped out. The guy looked up when he heard the elevator open, and his regular frown turned into a full blown scowl. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

The man with Chelia, a guy who had a shock of pure white hair and clothes that were also covered in paint spatters, rolled his eyes. “Oh, here we go.”

“What?” went Wendy.

“I’ll tell you in a bit,” Chelia replied.

“You got some nerve showing your face here,” the guy she’d been waiting with continued. The elevator doors closed softly.

“How was I supposed to know you’d be here? This is a coincidence. Don’t think so highly of yourself.” The white haired guy examined his fingernails.

“You don’t even live in the dorms, asshole, and it’s bad enough I have to see you in class, and you _knew_ this was my floor--”

“Actually, the thought that this might be your floor didn’t even cross my mind. I don’t spend all my time thinking about you, you know.”

The woman with Chelia--her sister, probably--rolled her eyes. Then she and Chelia exchanged a Look. This made Wendy think that perhaps the statement that he didn’t think about Black Haired Guy all the time wasn’t entirely true.

Black Haired Guy was getting angrier and angrier. “Are you saying I do? I’m just trying to have a good fucking day and then you show up out of nowhere--”

“It isn’t my fault Chelia needed escorting and I am her, surrogate uncle, or whatever,” drawled White Haired Guy.

“You’re the one who wanted to ‘escort’ me! To a study meeting. Honestly, Lyon,” interjected Chelia.

“What does a ‘good fucking day’ entail for you, anyway? Going to go beat the crap out of Dragneel or something?” 

“I had a date, fuckwit. Have. Actually, if you don’t mind, I’m tired of this shitty conversation and would like to get to that.” Fed up, Black Haired Guy pushed past Lyon and Chelia’s sister and stormed off down the stairs.

There was a pause. The door slammed behind him. “Oh,” said Lyon.

“It’s been like, six months. Can you seriously not be in the same room as each other without...that happening?” asked Chelia’s sister.

“Shut up, Sherry.” 

Sherry pursed her lips, then continued, “I’ve heard even Ur’s getting fed up. You two need to talk about this.”

“Seriously, just...drop it, Sherry.”

Sherry sighed. “Well.” She turned to Chelia and Wendy. “The two of you have a good study session. Text me when you’re done and I’ll be at the bottom of the tower within about fifteen minutes, okay?”

“Gotcha,” said Chelia.

And this was how Wendy met Gray Fullbuster.

A few days later he found her, this time in the lobby while waiting for an elevator up to her floor, and apologized for his behavior. “I’m really sorry you had to see that. I promise I’m not usually like that.”

“O...kay? I don’t really...care…”

“Oh. Haha. Well. Still, sorry. I hate giving bad first impressions, you know. Anyway, I’m Gray. Gray Fullbuster.”

“Uh, Wendy.” She shook his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Wendy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m 20 minutes late for my printmaking class and I’m pretty sure if I get any later they’ll use my blood for ink! Seeya.” He ran off again.

The elevator opened while she was staring after him, wondering why everyone she met was so weird, and two women brushed past her, causing her to drop a stack of papers she was holding.

“Oh! Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.” One of the women kneeled down to help her collect up her papers. It was Erza, the security guard, the one Wendy was still very afraid of.

“Oh! Uh, it’s fine!”

“Erza, dear, we’re going to be late for our movie,” the other woman complained.

“This is literally taking two seconds, Minerva.”

The other woman huffed and crossed her arms, but said nothing more.

Erza stood and pulled Wendy up as soon as they were finished. “Sorry again.”

“Really, it’s fine. Um, enjoy your movie!”

“If we make it on time,” Minerva said snidely.

Erza rolled her eyes. “Yes, you enjoy your afternoon as well.” She and Minerva left, their fingers lacing together between them while they bickered.

There were other things that happened to Wendy, obviously, as six weeks was a long time. But none of those things seemed so important in the present, because in the present, she had a date.

In six hours.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing that part with gray and lyon made me really sad :(
> 
> as usual the editing on this is...spotty! so let me know if you see anything!
> 
> also: i'm not going to tag for former relationships, unless i write them in. like, if i write a chapter about lucy and natsu (oh yeah, that was a thing once) or gajeel and levy. because i don't want to get people's hopes up when they search by relationship. 
> 
> also because i fucking hate gajevy
> 
> so if a relationship is tagged, that means it's coming! or already there! yep


	9. First Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No spoilers, but that thing about Mira getting mayo on her boob has totally happened to me.

It was seven am, on a Saturday. No one in their right mind was awake at that time, except for, of course, one Wendy Marvell, who had to be at work in an hour and was freaking out about it.

She’d cleared her special break with Mira days ago--it almost seemed Mira was more excited about Wendy’s date than she was, which Wendy didn’t think was possible--and so that was not going to be a problem.

But what if something happened while she was at work? What if someone asked for mayonnaise on their sandwich, and then asked her to reach really far so the mayonnaise got all over her boob? It had happened to Mira, it could happen to her! It was a lot less likely to happen to her, due to like. Size, and stuff, but it could still happen!

Or what if she made the sandwich for Chelia wrong and Chelia hated her? What if her one chance at happiness depended on how much mustard went on a piece of bread?

It was so stressful!!!

She’d made sure to wash her uniform the night before, so it was clean and pristine, and she’d even put on a little makeup like Juvia had shown her a few weeks ago when she’d mentioned wanting to learn how. Her hair was pulled back into a perfect ponytail. She looked the part of a dedicated fast food worker who had a date in the middle of her shift.

She smacked her cheeks (quietly, so as not to wake Laki, who wasn’t out meditating from the crack of dawn for once) and gave Charle a thumbs up. Okay. Now it was time to get breakfast and head to work.

Mira was already in, baking bread, when Wendy arrived, as she was five out of seven days of the week. There was a prep list taped to the wall above one of the big stainless steel tables. Five hours. She could do this.

Work was actually slightly less like making sandwiches in Hell that day. Sure, they were busy, and sure, that preschool class came in again, all ordering different sandwiches by pointing at what they wanted through the glass instead of speaking and all paying separately in cash, but only 3 creepy middle aged white dudes tried to hit on Wendy, and she didn’t have to remake anyone’s sandwiches.

At 12:55, when things were starting to slow down, the horrible buzzer in the back of store that told them whenever the door opened went off again. Wendy, cheerfully informing a man his sandwich would be $8.48, barely noticed. But when her customer was gone and she looked up, and there stood Chelia, at the other end of the sandwich line, trying to decide what she wanted to eat.

The moment of truth.

She carefully stepped around Max, who was on veggies, and told Warren, “I’ll take this one!” Warren furrowed his eyebrows, then looked at Chelia, then back at Wendy, who was starting to sweat, and then grinned slowly. 

“Yeah, okay. Max, Wendy’s got this one,” he told Max..

Mas grinned too, and the way they matched started to creep Wendy out. “We’ll just be in the back, hehe.”

Wendy pulled out two pieces of deli paper and asked, “What can I get for you, Miss?”

Chelia smiled. Wendy nearly swooned. How did she get so lucky?

Being so distracted by Chelia’s beautiful...everything, Wendy almost missed what she said, but the last few months had trained her to do her job even with the worst distractions one could think of. She made their sandwiches, wrapped them beautifully, and Mira, at the register, told her Chelia’s was on the house and that she could go on break now.

Wendy, heart pounding, went out the Employees Only door and took her seat across from Chelia at the booth by the windows on the right side of the store.

Chelia had gotten them drinks, which was nice, because Wendy had completely forgotten about hydration. She slid Chelia her sandwich across the table, and unwrapped hers slowly.

“So!” said Chelia.

“So,” repeated Wendy. She fiddled with the paper her sandwich had been wrapped in, not daring to take a bite yet. She could feel Mira watching her from the register.

“Uh, how’s work so far?”

“Work’s fine! We’re not so busy today, uh, ‘cause it’s an away game. And it should slow down a lot when the season ends in a couple weeks.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh! Um, do you have a job?”

“Well, I applied to this undergraduate research thing, but they haven’t gotten back to me yet…”

“I’m sure they will soon!”

“It’s been about a month, so…”

“Oh…”

Wendy nervously took a bite of her sandwich. This was going terribly! What was she supposed to do? She should have gotten a first date consultation with Lucy! Then it would go great! But no, she had to go and decide she was probably fine without! Stupid!!!

“How’s all your research on that other stuff going? The historical medical methods, or, what was it again?”

Chelia brightened up. Score one Wendy! “I’m actually making a lot of progress! And it was completely by accident, this exchange student from Alvarez saw some books I checked out and was translating--I’m taking Alvarezian for a minor because so much of their religious history fits into what I’m doing but I’m still a second year--and she told me what it all said, so that’s a lot of info I would have had to get later that I have now!”

“That’s great! What kind of stuff is it?”

“Hmm, well, the book itself is about something called the R system, and I must have missed the part where they say exactly what the R system is or why it was created, but there’s a lot about the rituals required to run it. Apparently you have to build some kind of tower? And there’s a tower on this weird little island in the south that matches some descriptions the book gave me, so I’m going to see if I can visit it this summer.”

“That’s amazing!”

“Well, the closest port to the island has a resort, so that’s another reason to want to go, haha.”

“Still, that’s really exciting! Have you told the school about any of this?”

“Mm, not yet. I want to put together a full report first and it’ll take more research to do that. I’ll see if I can get Brandish to translate more stuff for me. Oh, uh, Brandish is the exchange student who helped me before.”

Wendy nodded.

“What about you? Any big personal projects?”

“Well, I mean, aside from ‘getting to know my brother better’ and ‘passing midterms’ I don’t have much going on right now. Nothing like that.”

“Oh, come on. There’s gotta be something you’re doing on the side besides that.” Chelia grinned.

Wendy set her sandwich down. “Well, it hasn’t really gone anywhere interesting yet, but…”

“Hmm?”

“I’ve been thinking of maybe...volunteering at a hospital? I already volunteer at the animal shelter twice a week.” And scheduling that around work and classes had not been easy. Luckily (for her, at least, not for the animals), the animal shelter was severely understaffed, so they accepted her help pretty much whenever she dropped in. “It might not be very simple to just go and do, though.”

“That’s a great idea, Wendy! You should do it, if you can.”

“I’m just worried about scheduling..Mr. Roubaul doesn’t care when I come to help out at the shelter, but a hospital would probably be different, plus I have work here and classes…”

“Well, you have four years here! You don’t have to do everything you want all in your first semester.” Chelia ate some sandwich. “But it can’t hurt to look into it, right? And besides, if work slows down with the season ending, maybe you won’t get scheduled as much. And then you’ll have time for the hospital!”

“Maybe…”

“Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask, how’s Charle been? Did she miss me?”

The rest of the date went smoothly. They talked until the restaurant started to get busy again and Wendy had to go back to work, since her shift didn’t end until 4. They promised each other that they’d sit together in class Monday, although that was nothing new. There was an awkward moment when Chelia was trying to figure out how to leave.

“Um, so, yeah! Better get back to work!”

“I better, uh, get going too, yeah. My sister’s going to want to know where to get me.”

“Oh, yeah! You should get to that.”

“Mm.”

Silence.

“It was really nice seeing you!” Chelia blurted out all of a sudden, before kissing Wendy on the cheek and running out of the store. 

Wendy went red from the tips of her ears to the bottom of her neck. It was possible she was red even past that, but her uniform covered it.

“Wendy? A little help?” called Max from the counter.

“Right!” She rushed back to work.

She touched the spot on her cheek where Chelia had kissed it. She could still feel the press of the other girl’s soft lips to her skin, and would continue to for hours after she got home.

Her heart pounded in her chest every time she thought of Chelia’s face, red with the same nervousness Wendy was feeling at the moment, before she kissed her. 

Nothing could ruin this day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> date!! hooray!!!
> 
> i'm officially opening this up to requests! you got something you wanna see, tell me in a comment or on lydiawhinesaboutfanfiction.tumblr.com (and while you're there, check out my fic rec list!)
> 
> i haven't taken requests since i wrote aph fic on ff.net. but go crazy!


	10. Date #2

After the date, things with Chelia were more or less the same, but somehow...they were not the same at all. There was a new feeling in the air. Though it was the middle of October and the world was all going to sleep for the winter, Wendy felt like she always did at the beginning of spring, when she saw the flowers starting to bloom again, and heard the tomcats yowling at Charle from outside. But with less pollen and sneezing.

It was a feeling of _opportunity_. Wendy, who’d been forcing herself not to just reach out and hold Chelia’s hand when they walked for months, was now allowed to. Encouraged to! The first time she’d _very casually_ slipped her hand into Chelia’s, Chelia had abruptly stopped talking. For a moment Wendy thought she’d made a mistake. She was only 18, she made lots of mistakes!! But Chelia wasn’t upset. She smiled at Wendy, and grasped her hand tighter.

Also, now everything they did together was suddenly...much more romantic in nature. Lunch together at the caf? They pushed their chairs as close together as they would go, and got each other dessert. In class Chelia gave her many casual touches, partly because she wanted to show off, and partly because Wendy was so embarrassed whenever she did.

Wendy liked having a girlfriend. She’d never even had a _crush_ before, except on celebrities, and now she was living it up, dating. It was fun. Physical stuff was...weird, and would have to be talked about, but for now they were good.

The idea of going on another official date was also very exciting. Wendy wanted to say something, but part of her also didn’t want to be the _first_ to say something. Which was silly, because this was not a competition and in fact if she did say something she would “win,” but she didn’t want to seem too eager.

When she told Lisanna this, Lisanna laughed at her. Rude.

“Maybe since she made the first move, she’s waiting for you to make the second?”

“But she didn’t make the first move! I did, when I asked her to come eat with me!”

“But who suggested that in the first place?”

“...She did.”

“Right, so now it’s _your_ turn to suggest something.”

“What am I supposed to say? ‘Hey Chelia, we went on a date a week ago! Want to go on another one? I like your hair!’ I’m not exactly the best with words, Lisanna.”

“When Natsu first asked me out it was by saying he liked how viciously I hit the dummies in kickboxing during gym class, and that he’d heard a rumor I liked cats, so we were meant to be together.”

“And you said yes to that?”

“I figured, might as well. And we’re very happy! You just have to put yourself out there, Wendy.”

“Ugh…”

“It’ll be fine. You’ve already been on one date. How hard could another one be?”

“Super hard?”

“If you’re really that nervous, you could always try a double date?” Lisanna suggested.

“You’d go on a double date with me and Chelia?”

“Oh god no,” Lisanna said. Wendy’s face fell. “You really want your second date to have Natsu Dragneel at all involved?”

“Well, the last time I saw him, he did give me two hundred dollars…”

“Okay, but, he also did wake you up because he thought when I said 3 I meant 3 in the morning. Why don’t you ask, I don’t know, Cana and Juvia? Their dates always sound like...fun. From Cana’s drunk Twitter posts about them, at least.”

“I guess I’ll ask them…”

_And so, the next day at lunch:_

“You want to double date? With us?” Cana asked, looking very skeptical about the whole thing.

“You know I figured we could just go to the movies or something! Or, I don’t know, I’ve only been on one date before and that was last week and I’m just trying to figure out a second.”

“Oh, Wendy,” said Juvia sympathetically. “We will help you. But we will not double date. That is a terrible plan.”

“Hey, our dates are fun!”

“We’ve been banned from 4 restaurants in 3 months, Cana.”

“So?”

“Just tell her, ‘I want to go on another date sometime. What do you think?’ and see where it goes,” said Juvia, ignoring Cana, who was now muttering about a waiter who didn’t know a good party when he went to go take its order, and how she wasn’t even _that_ drunk.

_And so, later that day, after class:_

“Chelia! By the way. I had something I wanted to tell you,” Wendy said as they left Symphonia Hall, where the large lectures all took place.

“What’s that?”

Wendy took a deep breath. “I want to go on another date some time what do you think!” she half-shouted, somewhat robotically.

Chelia blinked. “Yeah, that would be fun! What do you want to do?”

“Uhhh. I don’t know? We could...see a movie, or something?”

“Okay! Here, let’s sit down so I can look up what’s in theaters right now.”

And that was how Wendy successfully asked a girl on a date.

The movie they saw was completely forgettable. Maybe it wouldn’t have been, if they had seen it by themselves, and not as a date, but Wendy knew if someone asked her what the movie was about after it was over she wouldn’t be able to tell them a single thing.

“I think the protagonist was a white guy,” she’d maybe be able to say. “With, a black friend? There was probably a girl. Maybe. Possibly some homoerotic subtext under the guise of a close male friendship. But honestly I’m not sure.”

She and Chelia went to McDonald’s afterward. Chelia got chicken nuggets. Wendy got a Big Mac. They got fries to share.

“So, I don’t know a whole lot about your family. Your sister is married? Or, is she still just engaged?”

Chelia dipped her chicken nugget in ketchup. “She and Ren are _technically_ married, but they haven’t had their wedding yet. They got married at the courthouse right after he proposed, but Sherry still wants a big wedding, so sometimes they tell people they’re husband and wife, and sometimes they tell people they’re just engaged. It can get really confusing!”

“Yeah,” Wendy agreed.

“What about you? You mentioned your mother, and a twin, but what about your dad?”

“Oh, Skiadrum’s around. What happened was, he and my mom were together when she was in residency, and he got her pregnant, so they decided to get married. She finished up residency when we were babies, opened up her clinic, and then their relationship got worse. I think spending less time together must have actually been good for them. So anyway, the clinic was doing okay, and Skiadrum’s job was going okay, so they split up. He got Rogue, Mom got me. She told me about how I had a dad and a brother and stuff, but that I couldn’t see them until I was older. Rogue… was not so lucky.”

“What do you mean?”

“Skiadrum didn’t actually tell him we existed. Apparently when he was a kid and he asked where his mom was, Skiadrum just told him he didn’t have one, and that was it. He actually found out about us completely on accident. His dad had him looking through his old files for some tax thing, and he found his birth certificate. He looked up Grandeeney on Facebook, found out she had a daughter with the same birthday as him, and messaged me, and that was it.”

“Like...The Parent Trap?”

“I guess? We didn’t switch places or anything. I mean, we are _not_ identical. You’ve met Rogue, right?”

“Oh yeah, I guess I met him at the movie. It was kinda dark, though, so I couldn’t really get a good look at him.”

Wendy pulled out her phone, opened her photos app, and swiped through until she found the selfie they took when they first met up in real life from August of the year before. He’d found her on the internet May of that year, and they’d finally convinced their parents to take them to meet each other right before school started. Well, Wendy convinced Grandeeney. Rogue got Skiadrum to drive him to the park where they just “happened” to encounter each other.

“This is us.” She showed the picture to Chelia. Wendy was a little more baby faced in this picture, and Rogue’s haircut was...not the best, but it served its purpose.

“Wow, you two really don’t look anything alike.”

“Everyone says we have the same nose.”

Chelia squinted at the picture. “Yeah, I see it.”

“Really? I still don’t...well, most of our similarities are personality-wise, anyway. We both are hard workers, we both really like cats, we’re both kinda shy. Well, Rogue would say he ‘prefers the shadows,’ but, he’s shy. I can tell. And he seems really intimidating when you first get to know him but he’s actually really nice and cares a lot about his friends, and I’d like to think I do too…”

“I think that’s a safe assumption.” Chelia smiled at her from across the booth.

Wendy flushed. “And, even though we grew up separately, we both ended up taking jiu jitsu class when we were 7! And apparently we hit puberty about the same time, and he’s also got anxiety and thinks it started around the same time as mine did. Twins!”

“That’s super interesting! I took a psych class in high school and they talked about twins raised separately, but they were all identical.”

“Well, it could all be coincidence…”

“Maybe you guys are just special. I mean, I think you’re pretty special, but that’s just me, and I’m pretty biased, so…”

Wendy blushed even harder. “Um!”

Chelia ate a fry and stared at Wendy. She cocked her head slightly. Wendy burned under her gaze. Sensing that Wendy was probably too embarrassed to say anything, she decided to just change the subject.

“So Ren, Sherry’s fiancee/husband, he’s got this weird boss Ichiya, let me tell you about this guy…”

When Wendy got back to her room later, she threw her arms up and yelled, “Second date: success!” to the empty room.

“That’s great!” someone yelled from the wall she shared with Lisanna and Miki. “But could you please keep it down?”

“Sorry!” Wendy shouted back, face completely red.

Lisanna came in a few minutes later. Wendy had, by now, changed into her pajamas and was highlighting her bio textbook at her desk, Charle curled up in her lap.

“Oh, hi Lisanna! Sorry for bothering you earlier.”

“Oh, it’s no big deal. Just, Natsu’s brother is coming into town next week, so I’m a little stressed about that.”

“Natsu’s brother? Does he have one of those…” Wendy wracked her brain for the words she’d seen on the internet once about obsessive brotherly relationships. “Does he have a brother complex?”

Lisanna cracked up, then dissolved into full laughter for a good 30 seconds. _“That’s exactly what he has!”_

“Well, then uh, good luck?”

“Oh, that’s not what I’m worried about. It’s more about how if he wanted he could have me killed with no repercussions.”

“ _What?_ Jeez! Do you want me to keep an eye out for him or something? Not sure how that would help, though…”

“Nah, don’t need it, he’s pretty easy to spot.”

“What’s, uh, what’s his name?”

“Zeref.”

“Like the emperor of Alvarez?”

Lisanna smiled slowly. “That’s him.”

Wendy let this sink in for a second. “Wait, what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> been awhile, huh?  
> i'll be back in america next week! how exciting.  
> i'm posting another chapter directly after this so don't miss it! it's a little backstory for lucy and natsu
> 
> the lecture hall, Symphonia Hall, is named for the family/kingdom from Hiro Mashima's other work, Rave Master, which I read recently and didn't think was very good, but there's a reference regardless!


	11. The Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wendy meets a famous person, learns why the boys' RA on her floor broke up with his ex, and gets some bad news.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i delete that natsu and lucy backstory? yes. has it been a year and a half since i updated? yes. am i guilty? eh.
> 
> a wild plot appears

Wendy checked her email after she finished her conversation with Lisanna. She had done remarkably well at not freaking out that she was only about three degrees separated from actual real life royalty, but once her room was empty, it was time to find out what the fuck was going on.

There, in one of those stupid mass emails she never read, was a mention that the emperor of Alvarez would be giving a speech on their nation’s medical advances and something about study abroad, and honestly Wendy wasn’t paying a lot of attention after she read the subject line but it was okay.

How had this gotten buried in all the other crap? Oh, that was right, all mass emails looked exactly the same and she deleted them indiscriminately, like a good college kid.

The next day was Sunday, and Wendy did not have to work, so she slept in until noon, and then went to get lunch with Cana and Juvia, who she met by the elevators.

“Did you hear about Natsu’s brother coming to town?” she asked them casually as they ate pancakes at one of the restaurants on campus. 

“Ugh, I hate that jackass,” Cana muttered, mauling a sausage.

“Juvia is not...fond of him either,” Juvia added. “He is coming here?”

“He’s giving a speech, and Lisanna’s all nervous about meeting him, and, I don’t know. I mean, it’s neat that our friend is a prince or whatever? But--”

“You really don’t have to worry about that kind of shit, girl,” Cana said. “First of all, Natsu doesn’t. The boy is a welder, he could not give less of a fuck about being related to royalty or whatever. Second, it’s not like the literal actual emperor of Alvarez is going to be in your room, judging your cat, or anything like that.” She sat back in her chair. “Important people don’t care about people like us, and that’s how I like it. You can get away with anything.”

“Uh. Thanks?”

But she was still concerned. Wendy wasn’t always the type to worry about things like this, but what if something crazy and out of the blue happened? What if the emperor of another country showed up at lunch and she accidentally tripped and spilled spaghetti on him and he got third degree burns and she had to flee the Alvarez military????

Obviously, no such thing happened. The next week passed almost without incident. Almost being the key word, but it was nothing like Wendy’s fears.

Not quite.

She did end up going to the talk he gave, because it was interesting and Chelia was really excited about it, since it was right up her alley and she was planning to study abroad for the whole next year. (Wendy hadn’t known that and had a whole load of feelings about it, feelings she would probably whisper to Charle and/or her brother in the night.)

After the talk, people were allowed to come up and ask questions, after being briefly screened by a fleet of bodyguards. Wendy caught a glimpse of Erza and Minerva pushing past the crowd to a woman with huge red braids and handing her a small envelope. The woman with the braids sneered at her, but when Erza wasn’t looking, tucked the envelope away in her coat pocket.

For Chelia, she stayed in line for half an hour before they were finally allowed to see Zeref. “One question,” said the guy next to him, an old man in a suit who Wendy vaguely recognized as some kind of former politician from when she was a child.

She did not have a question prepared. She knew Chelia must, because this was literally her whole life, but Wendy was not ready for this. She could ask something about the lecture? But what if what she asked had actually been covered and she’d just zoned out while he was saying it? What if it was some basic thing she should have already known and the king of a foreign country  _ and her girlfriend  _ would think she was stupid for it? It wasn’t her fault she didn’t know anything about medicine! That wasn’t true but it was sure how it felt!

“Thank you so much!” Chelia gushed. Wendy hadn’t been paying attention to that at all, awesome. And now everyone was looking at her.

She had to think of something. Quickly. Holy fuck what was she going to say-- “Can I show you this cute picture of my cat?” she blurted out.

Zeref blinked, and then smiled. Something about his smile set off Wendy’s fight or flight instinct, but she ignored it, because she’d get to run away in about point two seconds. “You know, that one’s a first. Sure.”

She pulled out her phone and chose, at random, a photo of Charle sleeping on her pillow, with Natsu’s cat Happy in the background staring her down with his weird, big eyes. “Um, so this is Charle, and that’s my friend’s cat back there…”

Zeref peered at the photo. “Ah, yes, Happy.” His smile now seemed just a little less genuine. “I know him. Your cat is lovely. Thank you for showing me. If you see Natsu, would you tell him I said hello?”

“Uh, yeah, sure, I can do that.” Considering Wendy had only actually been around Natsu twice in her life, and one of those times was at three in the morning, this was something she could agree to with few consequences. Ideal.

“Great. Well.” He nodded politely. Wendy nodded back, flustered, and fled with Chelia.

Chelia took her back to her dorm, because it was late at night (9 pm) and she didn’t want anything to happen to her girlfriend. Wendy didn’t have the heart to tell her about her black belt in jiu jitsu, or about how she set her first bone after breaking a neighbor kid’s arm when he tapped her on the shoulder and she mistook him for a creep and immediately took him down.

They waited in Wendy’s room for Chelia’s ride. Apparently Sherry was caught up in Lyon “being a little bitch again,” so it would be a while.

“So the emperor knew your friend’s cat?”

“Oh, yeah, he and Natsu are...related…”

“Wow! And I thought I was impressive with my fancy library access. How did you meet Natsu, then?”

Would it be right to say “he woke up up at 3 in the morning and gave me his cat and $200?” Probably not. “He’s dating my friend Lisanna?”

“Is Lisanna...famous?” Chelia looked confused.

“No, she’s a pre-vet fashion design major. Her sister is my manager at Subway, and her brother is on the wrestling team, I think?”

“Huh…”

“Natsu is apparently a welder, if that helps?”

Chelia narrowed her eyes. “...Why? Why would he...you know what, whatever. It’s cool that you know him. Maybe he knows Alvarezian and can help me with my stuff? No, I have Brandish for that, though she’ll be gone next semester…”

“Oh, uh, that reminds me.” Wendy swallowed. “You want to study abroad all next year?”

Chelia lit up. “Yeah! I think it’s a great time for me to really immerse myself in that culture to get a more sociological background on the ancient remedies and stuff I’m studying.”

Wendy nodded. “It’s just...I’m gonna miss you?”

Then, Chelia understood. “Oh, Wendy! I won’t be leaving until August at the latest, and it’s November now! That’s ten whole months!”

“I  _ know, _ ” Wendy protested, “it’s just now I feel like I have a time limit or something and I don’t like that.”

Chelia took Wendy’s hand. “You don’t have to worry about that. Really. We haven’t been dating that long…” Wendy’s face fell. “I mean, it’s not that far. And I’ll visit for winter break! I’m not saying we haven’t been dating that long so don’t worry about the future because we don’t know it. I’m saying I like you a lot, so we’re gonna make it work. Even if it is really far away. Okay?”

Wendy smiled. “Okay.”

Chelia’s phone buzzed, and she checked it. “Okay, Sherry’s on her way. I’m gonna go.”

“I’ll walk you to the elevators.”

Wendy took Chelia downstairs and saw her off to her sister’s car. She got back in the elevator to go back to her floor, and ended up accompanied by Gray, coming back from the studio.

“‘Sup, kid?”

“Not much. Just saying bye to my girlfriend.” Wendy rocked back and forth on her heels.

“Sherry’s sister? Me and her friend used to…”

“Yeah, I heard.” Wendy cleared her throat. “Uh, I mean, if you don’t mind me asking…”

Gray sighed. “It’s fine.”

“It’s just that you act so mean to each other--”

“Well he deserves it,” Gray snapped. Wendy flinched. He rubbed at his face. “Ugh, sorry. It’s been a few months, but I’m still...okay. We were at this party, and I hadn’t been drinking so I know what I saw was real because I was DD for the night, right? And it was getting late so I wanted to grab him so we all could go, but I couldn’t find him anywhere, so I went up to one of the bedrooms and he was… I saw him with some girl.” He scowled. “So I stormed out of there, and went home, and then he got all pissed at me for abandoning me at the party and when I told him what I saw he called me a fucking liar and gave me all these stupid excuses about how he dropped something and she was helping him look for it, or something? And...ugh, you don’t need to hear this.”

Wendy agreed. This was much more inappropriate than she thought it was going to be. She wondered exactly what position Gray saw Lyon in, but then decided it didn’t matter because picturing people naked was one of her least favorite things.

“Anyway, now I hate him because he  _ cheated  _ on me, and he hates me because I wouldn’t believe him that he didn’t. And Sherry and Millianna and everyone totally took his side, but it’s whatever. They were his friends first. I don’t need them,” he finished moodily.

The elevator finally, blessedly, made it to the top floor. They both stepped out and went to their respective sides. Gray was just about through when Wendy blurted out, “Well, I mean, I wasn’t there, but...I believe you.”

He stopped, and looked back at her. “Oh. Uh, thanks, kid. That...that’s nice of you. See you later.” He waved a little, then shut the door to his side. Wendy went back to her room and took out her chemistry textbook, then realized she couldn’t focus. But it was only 9. Maybe Lisanna was up.

She went through the bathroom and knocked on Lisanna and Mickey’s door. There was no answer, but she could faintly hear sniffling. “It’s Wendy. Can I come in?”

“Okay,” someone said, their voice watery. Wendy slowly opened the door and saw Lisanna sitting at her desk, crying.

“Oh my goodness! What’s wrong?” She rushed over and awkwardly started to pat Lisanna’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She grabbed a tissue from the box on her desk. “I just got some bad news.”

“What is it? Maybe I can help?”

“Only if you can convince Zeref to let Natsu stay here in Crocus instead of making him move back to Alvarez,” Lisanna said bitterly.

“What? He-he can’t do that!”

“Natsu said he’s pulling some weird crap with his visa, or something. He can.”

“Well...we have to stop him!” Wendy declared. In that moment, she didn’t know how she would do that, or how she would even  _ begin  _ to do it, but Lisanna was her friend, and Natsu sort of was too, and she wasn’t just going to let him get stolen away to another country!

“How are we gonna do that?”

“I don’t know,” Wendy replied honestly, “but we have to try! Natsu’s our friend, isn’t he? Or boyfriend, for you! And Crocus is his home, where everyone he cares about is! I’m not gonna give up without a fight.”

Lisanna smiled up at Wendy through her tears. “Yeah! Let’s do it!”

“Call all of Natsu’s friends, and get him here, too, if you can. We’re gonna stop his stupid brother if it kills us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i do not Like zeref, mostly because no matter how it happened (and i have unfortunately given it a lot of thought) HOWEVER it was august was conceived was HIGHLY fucked up
> 
> for god’s sakes she’s a teenager, asshole
> 
> also not talking about the gray/lyon backstory was killing me, so now we know about it and i can resolve it
> 
> boy have i been up to a lot this past year and a half. i no longer have roommates. i wrote a book.  
> also in funny news when i started writing this i was like "in this fic wendy is an ace lesbian but i'm pretty sure i'm pan" and now i'm like "damn i was some kind of future seeing wizard huh"
> 
> i have no idea when i'll update this again. 
> 
> talk to me at lydiawhinesaboutfanfiction.tumblr.com or lydiacatfish.tumblr.com !


End file.
